Route planning by distance/range?

We love to travel secondary roads and explore in our Jeep. Street Atlas is excellent for this as it shows so much detail for planning purposes. We do transfer a final route to our Garmin for use while driving just as a heads up but in no way does it compare to the Street Atlas on which we do our planning and refining. The Garmin just doesn't show any detail.

As far as maps being updated, they are quit sufficient for us. We find very few errors but then all mapping programs will have errors.

We use multiple sources while we're in the planning stages. No one is perfect. We also love the Benchmark series of paper atlases for traveling in the western states - not available for eastern states. They also have a lot of easy-to-read detail, especially on landmarks, public campgrounds and backroads for our Jeepin'.

Memilanuk,

Yes, the charts are always out of date. That is why I only replace the package every other year at best. The only navigator that is close to up to date is my Googlephone and that has a million subscribers sending them updates - even it is wrong sometimes.

Look at the other side....
With the cost of fuel, SA can save you its cost in routing during the first excursion.

Do you need the power of the GPS? For 10$us - about the cost of 20 miles on the road - you will love it every minute. Just having a big map with a "You Are Here" arrow is worth it.

My wife drives in daylight. I navigate and do "important" things on the computer. We run two GPS all the time. She gets the 5" Garmin loaded with the day's stops and destination (as of the current plan), and I will be watching and working on the next day if we are in Travel Mode.

Again, if you start running SA and have questions, I'm here a lot.

Matt

We used Street Atlas running on the laptop with the GPS receiver for our AK trip - worked very well - only downside was the space the laptop took up (we're in a 'B'). Now run a Garmin on the dash, but still use DeLorme for trip planning! ST

The DeLorme Street Atlas USA software looks like it does *exactly* what I'm looking for... a little concerned by some of the negative comments I've read about the maps not improving much over the last several years (Amazon). That said, I'm pretty sorely tempted by it coming either stand-alone for $40, or with a USB GPS antenna for $50. I don't really *need* that kind of extra capability... but it would be pretty sweet ;)

I'm with 2gypies.

Get a copy of Delorme Street Atlas and learn to use all of it.
You can set it up for miles or hours per day.
If you work by hours, you can include stop times for fuel, meals or attractions in that time.
It can tell you where to start looking for fuel.
If you get it with a GPS puck and buy a little inverter, it will track everything along the way.
If you carry it with you and leave it running, you can revise your plan on a whim and it will still work for you.

Learning to use this package may take some doing, but the results will take a great deal of the stress out of planning and traveling.

Matt

Delorme's Street Atlas will set designated mileage stops for you, including fuel stops.

We use google maps ourselves and figure out mileage/where we want to stop next. Then we do a search for rv parks and campgrounds near _______ and they will then be marked on the map for you. You can investigate each one by clicking on the icon or from the list on the left side of the page.

I found http://www.findfuelstops.com/ to work for that, but normally I use Google Maps instead.

Street and trips allows you to enter your mpg, tank amount and it will advise you.