Laptop mapping software

[robanddi]

Recommendations for laptop mapping software?

[APT]

I use Google Maps on a PC for planning. I can save routes to my Gmail account and use the route on my smartphone Google Maps for Mobile. As a backup, I use my vehicle's navigation, but the routes they pick generally do not match Google or what I pick.

The more valuable parts of using a smartphone app are the traffic information, quick lookup of local businesses, gas stations, restaurants, stores, etc, and even the phone number to click on to dial.

[strollin]

Adiabatman wrote:

fj12ryder wrote:
^^^^^^Hopefully you're not trying to watch the screen while you're driving. Even a big screen can be hard to use if you have to take you eyes off the road long enough to navigate.

So why do GPS systems have screens if we're not supposed to look at them?

I use my Android phone, turn the screen off, put it in my shirt pocket and listen to spoken directions for turns and such. I very rarely ever look at the screen.

[Adiabatman]

fj12ryder wrote:
^^^^^^Hopefully you're not trying to watch the screen while you're driving. Even a big screen can be hard to use if you have to take you eyes off the road long enough to navigate.

So why do GPS systems have screens if we're not supposed to look at them?

[OutdoorPhotogra]

strollin wrote:

fj12ryder wrote:

strollin wrote:

OutdoorPhotographer wrote:
I'm another who never found a replacement for Streets and Trips for planning. I wouldn't use my laptop for navigation anymore. CoPilot offers downloadable maps for areas with poor connectivity. But when I planned our last cross country trip in 2013, nothing was as good as S&T. I pulled out an old laptop just for that purpose.

Items I want in a planner:
1. Ability to set start and end time of driving for the day and apply automatically to entire trip.
2. Ability to override start/end for a particular day without altering the other days.
3. Ability to set planned rest stops (i.e. 20 minutes every 3 hours).
4. Ability to set the time for a specific stop in route (4 hours at siteseeing stop or 3 days in Chicago).

S&T's could do all of this. I haven't tired Good Sam recently to see if it does. I'm fine using CoPilot, Google, etc. to navigate between stops but those are useless for planning a four week trip with many varied stops from hours to days.

I guess we're all different. I would never use the features you listed as mandatory simply because I don't want to be on some kind of fixed time schedule when I'm on a trip. I start in the morning when I feel like it and do rest and site seeing stops along the way whenever I need/want to. How can you set a schedule for rest stops?

I'd have to agree with that. I have a stopping area for the day usually, and that's about it. Everything else is pretty freeform. If we are headed to a busy area, like the Outer Banks, then we might make reservations ahead of time, but no way could I adhere to such lockstep travel plans.

Sounds more like a job than a vacation. 🙂

Exactly! :B

My three cross countries have all had a timeline to be back at work so I have to have an idea of the route. The scheduled breaks keep me from building a schedule that is too aggressive for miles in a day.

I've flexed with every trip but the schedule helps make informed decisions that if I stay longer here, I choose to give up x, y, or z. Without a hard timeline for work, it would be different. I've also crossed the country on the southern, middle, and northern routes so it has been a lot of planning to decide what key spots to hit and what to skip. I would build in five hours in a state to find something local to do if there wasn't an obvious choice Iike a national park.

[strollin]

fj12ryder wrote:

strollin wrote:

OutdoorPhotographer wrote:
I'm another who never found a replacement for Streets and Trips for planning. I wouldn't use my laptop for navigation anymore. CoPilot offers downloadable maps for areas with poor connectivity. But when I planned our last cross country trip in 2013, nothing was as good as S&T. I pulled out an old laptop just for that purpose.

Items I want in a planner:
1. Ability to set start and end time of driving for the day and apply automatically to entire trip.
2. Ability to override start/end for a particular day without altering the other days.
3. Ability to set planned rest stops (i.e. 20 minutes every 3 hours).
4. Ability to set the time for a specific stop in route (4 hours at siteseeing stop or 3 days in Chicago).

S&T's could do all of this. I haven't tired Good Sam recently to see if it does. I'm fine using CoPilot, Google, etc. to navigate between stops but those are useless for planning a four week trip with many varied stops from hours to days.

I guess we're all different. I would never use the features you listed as mandatory simply because I don't want to be on some kind of fixed time schedule when I'm on a trip. I start in the morning when I feel like it and do rest and site seeing stops along the way whenever I need/want to. How can you set a schedule for rest stops?

I'd have to agree with that. I have a stopping area for the day usually, and that's about it. Everything else is pretty freeform. If we are headed to a busy area, like the Outer Banks, then we might make reservations ahead of time, but no way could I adhere to such lockstep travel plans.

Sounds more like a job than a vacation. 🙂

Exactly! :B

[fj12ryder]

strollin wrote:

OutdoorPhotographer wrote:
I'm another who never found a replacement for Streets and Trips for planning. I wouldn't use my laptop for navigation anymore. CoPilot offers downloadable maps for areas with poor connectivity. But when I planned our last cross country trip in 2013, nothing was as good as S&T. I pulled out an old laptop just for that purpose.

Items I want in a planner:
1. Ability to set start and end time of driving for the day and apply automatically to entire trip.
2. Ability to override start/end for a particular day without altering the other days.
3. Ability to set planned rest stops (i.e. 20 minutes every 3 hours).
4. Ability to set the time for a specific stop in route (4 hours at siteseeing stop or 3 days in Chicago).

S&T's could do all of this. I haven't tired Good Sam recently to see if it does. I'm fine using CoPilot, Google, etc. to navigate between stops but those are useless for planning a four week trip with many varied stops from hours to days.

I guess we're all different. I would never use the features you listed as mandatory simply because I don't want to be on some kind of fixed time schedule when I'm on a trip. I start in the morning when I feel like it and do rest and site seeing stops along the way whenever I need/want to. How can you set a schedule for rest stops?

I'd have to agree with that. I have a stopping area for the day usually, and that's about it. Everything else is pretty freeform. If we are headed to a busy area, like the Outer Banks, then we might make reservations ahead of time, but no way could I adhere to such lockstep travel plans.

Sounds more like a job than a vacation. 🙂

[GoPackGo]

robanddi wrote:


What I should have been clearer on is my desire to have a large map I can plan, route and track on my laptop with decent GPS receiver. My technical skills are 20 plus years old which means they are totally worthless in today's modern world!

Diann

That's exactly what I do with MS S&T loaded onto my 17 inch laptop. I think I have the 2013 version of S&T. I just max out the map to be as large as the screen. I have the little GPS magnetic hockey puck and if I want to, I can use it in my truck as a huge GPS.

[strollin]

OutdoorPhotographer wrote:
I'm another who never found a replacement for Streets and Trips for planning. I wouldn't use my laptop for navigation anymore. CoPilot offers downloadable maps for areas with poor connectivity. But when I planned our last cross country trip in 2013, nothing was as good as S&T. I pulled out an old laptop just for that purpose.

Items I want in a planner:
1. Ability to set start and end time of driving for the day and apply automatically to entire trip.
2. Ability to override start/end for a particular day without altering the other days.
3. Ability to set planned rest stops (i.e. 20 minutes every 3 hours).
4. Ability to set the time for a specific stop in route (4 hours at siteseeing stop or 3 days in Chicago).

S&T's could do all of this. I haven't tired Good Sam recently to see if it does. I'm fine using CoPilot, Google, etc. to navigate between stops but those are useless for planning a four week trip with many varied stops from hours to days.

I guess we're all different. I would never use the features you listed as mandatory simply because I don't want to be on some kind of fixed time schedule when I'm on a trip. I start in the morning when I feel like it and do rest and site seeing stops along the way whenever I need/want to. How can you set a schedule for rest stops?

[OutdoorPhotogra]

I'm another who never found a replacement for Streets and Trips for planning. I wouldn't use my laptop for navigation anymore. CoPilot offers downloadable maps for areas with poor connectivity. But when I planned our last cross country trip in 2013, nothing was as good as S&T. I pulled out an old laptop just for that purpose.

Items I want in a planner:
1. Ability to set start and end time of driving for the day and apply automatically to entire trip.
2. Ability to override start/end for a particular day without altering the other days.
3. Ability to set planned rest stops (i.e. 20 minutes every 3 hours).
4. Ability to set the time for a specific stop in route (4 hours at siteseeing stop or 3 days in Chicago).

S&T's could do all of this. I haven't tired Good Sam recently to see if it does. I'm fine using CoPilot, Google, etc. to navigate between stops but those are useless for planning a four week trip with many varied stops from hours to days.

[Belgique]

I recently found RV Trip Wizard and love it. It makes planning a long trip very easy. It is a subscription but worth every penny IMHO.

[fj12ryder]

^^^^^^Too true. I can't imagine trying to plan a trip on a GPS. They work great for what they do, but trip planning wouldn't be one of their strong points IMO.

Hopefully you're not trying to watch the screen while you're driving. Even a big screen can be hard to use if you have to take you eyes off the road long enough to navigate.

[strollin]

Adiabatman wrote:
... I tried a Garmin, but found the small screen hard to see and I had a bad time trying to plan a trip on it. ...

I can't believe anyone would plan a trip on their GPS, that's crazy. There's plenty of ways to do trip planning on your PC then transfer the completed route to the GPS.

[Adiabatman]

I'm using Streets & Trips 2013 on an old XP laptop. I was sorry to see MS end S&T's run, for I have found it very easy to use. I have it installed on both an old XP machine which is mounted on my console and serves as my navigation aid, as well as my main laptop. I do my trip planning on that machine and then just copy the trip to the other laptop with a USB memory stick. Being 3 years old, it occasionally sputters when I'm on a new road not in its DB, but that is fairly seldom. I tried a Garmin, but found the small screen hard to see and I had a bad time trying to plan a trip on it. The 12" screen is very easy to see and I like the ability to quickly and easily zoom in and out using the plus and minus keys.

[SageCrispin]

We have a passenger side laptop (navigator) and an external 10" monitor (pilot side), running Garmin Mobile PC. While GMPC is plenty long in the tooth, it can still use all current map updates. For me, the important missing features are the posted speed limit and the lane assist graphics.

The iPad Garmin version will not, under any circumstances mirror to an external monitor, making it totally unacceptable for us.

The iPad version of Copilot ($10 one-time voice guidance, $10/year map/traffic updates) will mirror just fine using an Apple TV ($150-200), and I expect (though have not confirmed) that it will work with the Apple Digital AV adapter ($50). Copilot will not speak street names, but neither does GMPC under Windows 10. There is an android version, but I don't know how the mirroring might work (or not).

The laptop version of Copilot ($100) says it does full street names, but there is apparently no trial version, so have been hesitant to go that way since the iPad version is free to try/use, and minimal to maintain. Also the laptop version does not seem to offer vehicle profiles (RV vs car), which are offered in the iPad version. The Truck version for laptop is there, which checks bridge height but is $150, which again, is hard to justify given the tablet version cost.

For now, we will continue to parallel iPad Copilot and GMPC. While not crazy about Copilot (most of the time an internet connection has been required to set up a particular destination as many POI's seem to be missing, and most speed limits are not displayed) it seems to be the best alternative right now.

Will certainly be following this thread. Good luck to the OP!