RE: [A/S] Mapping tool?

["Perry Joe Scudder" <perryjoe@xxxx>]

Hi Paul,
I agree with the folks that recommended the DeLorme Street Atlas USA
software. I have it, MS Street and Trips, and the one put out by Good Sam on
CD as a Campground Finder and also has mapping capability. I find the
DeLorme "Street Atlas USA" and their GPS unit is way better than the others,
especially in the ability to customize and name locations to your liking. I
never travel anywhere without having my trusty laptop and both the MS
"Street and Trips" along with the DeLorme software programmed for the exact
route I want to follow. I also have my stopping places plugged in for each
night. The program tells me the time and distance to the next two turns, and
the end of the day stop. This starts over each day in the "Turns" screen,
but you can look in the "Directions" screen to get information on the entire
trip. I laid out a trip to Alaska that had 53 stops, and took 14,000 miles
to drive it all. Delorme had a program at that time that was called "Map N
Go" that had Canada, so I had to switch to that from the Canadian border to
Alaska - it worked pretty much the same. That information is in their
"Street Atlas USA" after the 2005 version, and "Map N Go" is no longer
available. I used the MS "Street and Trips" for the Canadian part of a
summer trip through Canada and up into Nova Scotia. It does not have the
"Turns" information for the day like Delorme, and I have grown to really
like that data. BTW, both the Delorme and the Microsoft programs will run
off of the Delorme GPS unit. I think the same is true for the Microsoft GPS
unit that can be bought at Best Buy packaged with "Street and Trips" for
about $130. Both GPS units are about 1/2 the size of a deck of cards, and
just lays on the dash by the front window in order to track your progress on
the computer screen. "Street Atlas USA" puts a big green arrow at your
location on the map, and leaves a trail along your travel path, while
scrolling the map to keep the arrow on the screen as you move along your
path. "Street and Trips" puts a small circle with a little car inside at
your location, and leaves a blue line to show where you have traveled as it
scrolls the map along. The "crumb Trail" feature is VERY helpful when trying
to get around in strange large cities. You can tell how you got to your
location on the map, and which route you need to take to your destination.
MS just added this feature in 2005, and it was amazing how hard it was to
figure out the route when you stopped at a traffic light and tried to figure
out which way to go from that point. You could tell where you were, but not
how you got there and which direction you are traveling. It helps to lock
your map to rotate to match your "direction of travel", which always keeps
your arrow headed up the page - not with "North Up" which is the norm. I put
this info in the answer because finding the addresses of most of the
"Courtesy Parking" folks will require some driving around city streets and
developments to find them.

Joe Scudder
WBCCI 8624