Four of us are traveling from S. Calif., to England, Wales, Scotland, and back to England in a couple of weeks. We are driving, and have a GPS and plenty of folding maps. How do I wean myself off my almost 3 pound AA Road Atlas? Do I really need it? I even thought about taking it apart, but the way it's set up that doesn't make sense. It has such good info in it.
Dee
We have road atlases of Britain and France, both weigh a ton, sometimes come in handy, but they're relics of the time before we got a GPS. For a road trip now I think I'd take a good paper map and maybe some relevant city or regional maps if I could find them, along with the GPS. Atlases are great if you live where they cover, so you don't have to fly and lug them around outside the car.
If your plans are definite enough, some strategic photocopying of pages might be the best way to go, as suggested above.
You can't beat having maps / or a road atlas. The young people seem to wander around with sat-navs but many are clueless as to the lie of the land and the relationship between one place & another.
Once you arrive and get going, I would find one of the big supermarkets that are on the edge of towns such as Asda (Walmart) or Tesco. Here, you can usually buy an up to date road Atlas for less than £10. (I favour those showing relief but these seem to be non-existent these days).
I would also, before leaving home, look at Google Earth & try and follow your predicted routes. A good idea is to go on this site and list your predicted route & ask for comments/tips.
Thanks much for the suggestions, I have considered buying if needed when we arrive. Sounds good.
Our big AA atlas stayed in the suitcase the last two trips to England so I'll probably leave it at home next trip. We have iPhones and iPads with the TomTom UK offline app installed. Plus prepaid data is cheap in the UK so the Apple and Google map apps are available. I'll probably get a folding map which gives the big picture just in case the electronics fail.
I use googlemaps on my iPhone and iPad and they work great. I love being able to zoom in and out and get street view so I can see what I'm supposed to be looking for when I get where I'm going!
I compromise. I have some larger scale maps for context and then use GPS. The atlas stays on my bookshelf where it still comes in handy now and then. :)
Pam
The I phone and Ipad are good ideas, but we are trying to leave as much electronic stuff as we can at home. Don't want to spend a lot of time looking at them instead of the country itself. Contradictory as it seems,we will have both with us though.
Dee
Sorry, you lost me. I fail to see the difference between using a GPS vs. an iPhone or iPad with a map app for getting to where you want to go. I would think they'll be used about equally.
We have friends who live in a small town in Sussex, they of course have a GPS on car, what amuses me is how often they ignore it!
You can't always trust satnavs. Sometimes they just connect the shortest route between two places and send you on unsuitable roads. Somebody asked me to come up with a route. I went to the bother of drawing out a map of a scenic coastal route. What did they do? They ignored my map, followed the orders of the satnav which took them on a boring inland route through bog standard farmlands.
We now leave our large road atlas at home, as many here are saying. We use our GPS with good results. I have also gone onto "www.theaa.com" to copy the route out to some of our destinations and take that along just in case. But, haven't needed it. My large road atlas stays at home and helps me in my initial trip planning.
All good suggestions, appreciate them. We use vias a lot on the GPS/SatNav. Like the AA idea. I'm the one who isn't the digital genius, but I do printed maps very well. We try to avoid the M roads, use them mostly to circumvent large towns, and try to find the scenic routes.
fab1 is right, You cannot always trust sat/nav. The last time in England she took us in a circle. Really. Consecutive left hand turns, in addition to the one lane tracks. This GPS was one we brought with us that had been fitted with the proper UK chip.
Other times we have hired our car and GPS thru Kemwell. She still took us down some suspicious roads but never in circles.
Back to the topic. I always take my AA, tho until now I've not thought of tearing out the appropriate pages. That is so Rick! My AA shows me the big picture of where I'm going and my GPS tells me how to get there. Dee, if the weight of on your flight it is your concern, I bought my last AA at a Welcome Break for only £5. For only £5 it hurts less to pass it on before you come home.
I bring a GPS, but like to see on a paper map what the route should be. That way I have something to fall back on should the GPS misbehave. Would a map be available at the airport, and if so, where? We are renting a car when we arrive at Heathrow. In my experience, if rental agencies have a map at all it is only for the local area.
I always check out where I am planning on going before I leave home - by using Google Earth. You can even zoom down to see the configuration of difficult junctions - taking into account that in Britain, they drive on the left.
BTW, fuel is more expensive on the motorways & at branded fuel stations such as Esso & BP. Try & buy fuel at the big supermarkets such as Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury or Asda (Walmart). These supermarkets usually have road atlases at low prices.
Please note that you must not overtake on the inside. So, on a 3 lane motorway, you will normally find slow stuff in the left lane & fast traffic overtaking in the right hand lane. You should not hog any lane. If you were in the middle lane & the left lane is empty - you should move to that lane. People will often drive above the 70mph speed limit on motorways. However, police do set up mobile speed traps & gantries often have speed cameras. Britain is one of the safest places to drive.
Thanks for the advice on where to get gas. We probably wouldn't have done it without knowing, but will try it.
I have never been able to tear pages out of Rick's books, even though he recommends it. We did an England trip in 2010 and did just fine, but are doing more side trips this time out in new territory. We've added Wales and Scotland.
If the whole trip is driving, not starting out with trains, then only one member of your party has to carry that big atlas in their (checked or carry-on) luggage for one plane ride. Then, you pick up the car and it carries you to door-to-door in most cases. Later, you decide whether or not you want to carry the atlas home again.
Uh, Oh, Laura. I could do this.
WH Smith is at both Heathrow and Gatwick and one should be able to pick up the AA products there.
