Matt_Colie wrote:
...What I want is a program that I can load a route in and ask it what is along the way...
MicroSoft Streets and Trips will do some of what you want. If you load in POI data sets for the type of attractions you want from places like the POI Factory, Discovery Owners Forum and others, when you click on the find nearby places feature you can select a route or a segment of the route and set a distance from the route. It will then generate a list with the straight line distance of each POI from the route. You can select which of many categories of POIs you want it to search for. Unfortunately Streets & Trips has been discontinued so there will be no future updates of roads, etc; but it still works.
I have never used the other maping programs like Street Atlas so have no idea about their features and capabilities.