Maps versus written directions

I either take a map that hotels provide and /or the maps I have in the guide books I use

I use tourist map supplied by the lodging or tourist center. no need to buy these nowadays as they are paid for with advertising. Some guidebooks come with maps. If I'm going to a specific place off the tourist path like a club, I use google maps on a tablet and write details of a route so I don't have to carry tablet. Florence Pisa Rome you don't need a map. They have signs everywhere pointing to directions to tourist sites.

For smaller cities I normally just use a map from my hotel or the tourist office picked up upon arrival. If I'm spending a substantial amount of time in a large city (as one might in Rome), I like to have a larger map ahead of time so I can mark things I want to visit that might not already be labeled on the map (picturesque streets I've read about, shops, restaurants). Many people do that sort of prep electronically these days, but I don't like to wander around with an electronic device in my hand all the time.

Despite what I'd like to have, the fact is that I often arrive in the big cities with only the tiny map printed in my guidebook and perhaps a little sketch I've made of the path from train or bus station to my hotel. Then I pick up a freebie map as soon as I can and make do with it.

Most tourists don't go far enough afield to need one of the fancy $8 city maps sold in bookstores, but for a stay-put vacation, it would be nice to have a map that wouldn't disintegrate at the first hint of rain. And those free maps don't hold up to being refolded very often, which is the reason I travel with a small roll of tape.

Folks who aren't really comfortable with map-reading might like turn-by-turn directions, but I've never found them helpful. I'd rather just look at a map. I do sometimes find it useful to follow the little "You are here" dot on my cellphone when I'm in an area lacking in street signs. I use the smartphone app from Ulmon, CityMaps2GoPro. I think the current cost is $6, which allows you to download all the city and regional maps you want. Once downloaded, the maps are available offline, without Wi-Fi or a cellular signal.

Fairly often I stop at my hotel's reception desk to check on the best way to get somewhere by bus or subway. Desk personnel are usually happy to mark a suggested route on your map. That's one of the perks of staying in a hotel rather than an apartment.

All of the above. Maps from guidebooks, hotels, TI. Streetwise maps for cities with lots of small streets (Venice!) Regional maps + GPS for driving, where the big picture is useful. CityMaps2Go on my phone (offline) to locate where I am. Written instructions to get from railroad station to hotel.

And when none of these work, asking for directions on the street...

I look it up on google maps, sometimes print them out, and sometimes "walk" there on google streetview.

I rely heavily on Google Maps but like to have a paper backup from the hotel. I like to mark up the paper map as a souvenir and reminder.

I was thinking of buying one of the fancy plastic laminated maps, like the ones I saw for sale in a bookstore today, but I cheaped out and didn't buy anything; I wasn't sure if I could rationally justify the cost. I saw four different maps of Rome - one was too small and had two pop-out maps, another didn't include area where my hostel is, between the train station and the Borghese; there was only one map of Florence, no map of Pisa, Naples, or Pompeii. Also, how would I know whether a map is missing some side streets or paths, and if some streets or paths are missing, is it a bad map?

I buy laminated maps for cities where they are available and/or bigger cities. On my solo Italy trip five months ago I took my Rome and Florence maps from a previous trip. Streetwise Maps are pretty good in most cases, but I used to light the maps published by Insight Guides which are harder to find now. For me the key to great map is that it's laminated. So much easier to fold and you don't have to worry about spills or rain. Also much more durable that a paper map. For smaller cities and/or places where you are spending less time a tourist map that are often provided for fee is fine. I enjoy looking at my maps long after I am done using them, too. I guess I am a bit of collector of travel maps.

Hi,

I use sometimes the map provided by the hostel or hotel, other times I use my own written instructions how to get from point A to B, which tram line, S-U-Bahn, or bus # to take, where to get off, etc. These written instructions are written on 3x5 cards for getting around in France, Germany, Austria. I don't use google maps, or carry a smart phone. In Germany and Austria if I cannot find the spot I'm looking for, I duck into a shop and ask, or ask other bystanders, policemen, or at a kiosk, whatever in the local language and listen to their answers in the local language. Naturally, they know I'm a tourist.

I love maps and wouldn't travel without one. A few weeks ago I bought a detailed map of Cuba, and borrowed another with detail of Havana, even though I was going on a tour and would be driven everywhere. I want to know where I am and what I'm seeing. I use Google Earth and Via Michelin for planning but not much when actually traveling.

I mourn the disappearance of Streetwise Maps, the laminated maps of major cities that were found in good bookstores until recently. They've gone out of business, no doubt a casualty of the online world. Using one of their maps in Athens, I found an error in showing a Metro connection and wrote them about it, mentioning that I'd be using one of their maps for my next trip, to Buenos Aires. Soon I had a letter back from one of their people, thanking me and promising to correct the error (alas, never had the chance), enclosing their Buenos Aires map, and adding some restaurant recommendations based on her time there. A business like that is obviously doomed in today's culture!

The hotel and visitor center freebies will do when nothing better is available, or when it's a short visit, though I find all the ads and hype annoying. I swear by Benson's London map and Michelin's Paris map book. For other cities I don't know what I'll do without Streetwise but I'm sure some options will turn up. There's a great store in Seattle, Metsker Maps, but down here in the sticks the best we can do is Barnes & Noble. I guess if I were flying into a city for awhile, and didn't already have a good map, I'd look for one at the airport.

So Mike, I'd say get some good maps of those Italian cities where you'll be more than a couple of days. You never know what's around the corner! ;-)

I print the Google map visual of our directions from train stations to hotels, along with writing the Tram or Bus number info from rome2rio.com on the paper. After we arrive, we usually use the hotel map supplemented with directions I've written down before we left home. We try not to walk around staring at a map and are okay getting a little lost in the process.

I collect maps like some others collect stamps. I don't buy maps for the cities I am planning to go. I either already have them or look at google maps or guide books usually have some maps. I buy or get free maps once I get there. I don't care for directions because once you miss one turn you are screwed. Just looking at the map is showing me directions. Hard to say about map publishers. I always look at the map to see if it's good; publisher is not that important to me. OK, if I have to name one then be it: Freytag & Berndt.

The free map the hotel hands out works for me. A small compass helps a lot.

Of course you need a map. What happens when you go 'off piste' with just directions? You are stuffed.

Ilja, you just reminded me to check my map stash -- and sure enough, I have a Streetwise Rome that I'd forgotten about (I'll be there next week)! My husband is like you -- he loves to go to bookstores (especially when we're in the States) and buy maps for cities that he dreams of going to someday.

I even found a Florence one that I can use if I end up getting off the train there for the day before continuing on to Orvieto.

Anyway, more broadly: yes I love maps!! And I do find myself using them on my smartphone (Android) more and more. I did like Here maps, which is free- I download the map while at home on WIFI, and I can add in sites/restaurants/my hotel etc and then I don't have to be online to use it when I'm in the city. But I admit they changed their interface and I don't find it as easy to do my place-saving now, it's a bit annoying. For the big cities, I'm also devoted to CityMapper, which will tell you the best way to get somewhere via public transport. I use it all the time here in Paris and have used it in London, and found it wonderfully reliable in both places. It's free too.

But I love to peruse a map offline, love to have one in my hands to "meander" around while I'm still on the train, or relaxing at the hotel, etc. etc.

I love maps and miss the Streetwise series. The Streetwise maps are the ones I keep.

Otherwise, Iuse the free hotel maps. They don't show every street, and many just show the historic center do some major sights may not be on them.

For big cities, I would not dream of not having a map. I have a spiral-bound street map of Roma, because I spend a lot of time there.

Much as I would like to keep the free maps for future reference, they take up too much luggage space on a long trip, so I ditch them when I leave the city.

If I am driving I buy the appropriate Michelin maps. I use GPS but it can fail

In a city I may have the basic map that comes in a guidebook, or one given by the hotel, but I prefer a map on my phone. Offline, but GPS doesn't require data so I can see where I am and which way I'm moving in real time. I also mark places I want to go on the map so I can see what I'm near and pop into that bakery I read about.

At home I look at overview maps from guidebooks and google maps (with street view sometimes) to get a sense of the layout. Then the phone maps when I'm there.

Mike,
Sam from Green Bay made an excellent suggestion about using googlemaps.com street view and "pre walking" some routes before you ever leave home. Not saying you should do away with other maps completely, but we've found that method is really good for getting a visual lay of the land for routes from train stations to hotels, hotels to particular restaurants, and to walking to particular sites within a city. It takes a bit of experimentation, and depending on the location, it can be a bit frustrating, but once you get the hang of it, it is a great tool. Nothing like arrive in a strange place and having it all look familiar. Try it and see what you think.

I forgot to add that written directions rely on you knowing your precise itinerary. Yes, you could print directions from hotel to museum, but when you finish that museum you may want lunch. Or to go to a park. Or another sight. You might not know until you are done at the museum, if you're hungry, if the weather calls out for a stroll, etc. You are likley not going directly back to hotel - so you will need a map, be it online or paper, to navigate around.

I love Streetwise laminated maps, but they have sadly closed their doors, so I'm hanging onto the ones I have. I'm in Amsterdam right now and have used it extensively to find various non-tourist places and I realized that I really don't see many others with maps out-perhaps they just wander aimlessly, who knows? I also plot out some places using the particular city's transit planner.

There are other laminated maps available in book stores and/or online. Do examine one (even if not for the correct city) before placing an online order. There's one company (don't remember which) whose maps are sort of cartoonish. I'm sure some folks really like them, but using one of those maps would drive me wild. I don't like maps with pictures of buildings plopped down on the map so you (sometimes) can't see the name of the street behind the building--or even whether there is a street behind the building. Another triumph of style over content, I'd say.

Google maps. So easy...just be the blue dot! And you look like everyone else on the street looking at their phone!

Yes I do have a smart phone, which I bought so that my parents could call me when I travel outside the country, using my same phone number. I never got into using it much except sometimes for phone calls; I never tried putting a map on the phone; the screen is under 1/4 the size of my desktop computer's screen and websites appear on the phone in a squeezed-down low-functioning format; there are older people who love playing around on smart phones and there are young people who don't care much for them.

I use IGN maps for driving in larger areas. For cities, I typically look up directions on my computer before heading out from my room and I use Google Maps when out and about. To avoid data charges, I pre "star" sights I want to see, and download that Google map to my phone. As far as small screens, the one thing phone screens can do that paper maps can't is zoom in or out for detail. OF course, sometimes getting a little lost can lead to nice surprises!

The free maps at the hotels are great . . . once you find the hotel. On more that one occasion, most recently in Seville, I had trouble getting from the railway station to our AirBnb. I didn't know which way I was pointing, none of the google maps I had printed before had the streets I could find, my GPS on the iphone had trouble connecting and referenced streets I couldn't find, no North and South directions, and the directions given by the host were vague at the start. Another time we landed at Piraeus in Athens and followed Ricks directions to a "T" on how to get downtown using the subway. Unknown to us, the subway was not operating all the way to town, so we were gestered to get off. We did, but still couldn't understand why, so we got back on and were told again to get off and take a bus. And you know how everyone tells you just ask a young person, 'cause they all speak English. We found out that that a'int particularly so. And to compound problems, the maps in Rick's books were only detailed once you got closer to town. So, after 20 minutes on the bus and seeing that we were heading toward the Acropolis, I thought all was okay . . . until the bus veered to the right and continued. So again I asked if anyone speaks English and found a tourist who was visiting her Dad and asked him. The directions we got didn't seem right, but we followed, got off the next stop and found ourselves within the confines of Ricks maps and were finally able to make it to our hotel. What can I say, it was all Greek to me.

I haven't bought a map since I've had Internet access. By the time I'm out of the planning phase, I have a complete itinerary of where I'm going. I don't need long distance maps since I use public transportation, and I download local maps to my netbook to use at my destinations.

This is my third trip since 2011 and the first time I'll have a phone that I can use just like I do at home. With large amounts of data I can use Google maps as much as I need and I'm confident it'll make navigating less stressful.

I'll be using CityMaps2Go and probably some Google Maps next month. I've been "starring" a lot of places on the CityMaps and I expect to use the apps a great deal for purposes of simply getting from Point A to Point B. But I'll also be bringing along Streetwise maps for our three cities of Venice, Florence and Rome. I've always loved the convenience and durability of those maps.

I understand why the Streetwise company is getting out of the business, but that doesn't mean some of us don't appreciate physical maps. I like having what I think of as a "detailed overview" of a place in my pocket. I can see the whole city (or half of it) in one glance and see the relationship of the site I'm trying to reach with surrounding areas. It helps me establish a sense of place and direction that a 4-inch screen on a phone just can't match.

I guess this trip will be a good test, though, of whether I want to keep carrying the maps around or just rely on the phone apps.

"...ask a young person 'cause they all speak English....that ain't particularly so." Very true, and not only in Greece. That line of reasoning presupposes that "they" want to speak English with you in the first place and, secondly, have the linguistic level to do so. Plus, I don't like relying on the other person's level of English to communicate. So, in your experience, either "they" had no desire, didn't want to be bothered, or the necessary level to communicate in English.

I don't get the fascination with Streetwise maps. They don't fold small enough to fit in a pocket, they don't have great detail, you can't write on them and they are only good in theory, not practical for me.

I'm a big fan of hard copy maps and bring whatever is useful and appropriate. I don't count on the (sometimes cheesy) tourist maps you get at hotels (if they have them) - some don't even show distance scales and they're filled with ads all over the place. I'd rather have my own maps - Streetwise is great and there are others (for example, in smaller towns in Sicily, I had to print out maps from the city's own websites because they were by far superior to any I could find elsewhere). I think you should employ whatever works best for you - there is no shame in not resorting to smartphones for everything.

Just returned from nearly a month in Italy, half on a RS trip in Sicily and half in Rome by myself. Although I carried a printed street map in Rome, I rarely used it. Found it much, much easier to use CityMaps2Go. I loaded all my possible sites when I was on wifi, including my lodging, and found it very easy to refer to when not quite certain if I was headed in the right direction. So long as you have loaded the city when you are online, you can also search for addresses offline and see where you are at present in relation to where you want to go.

That said, I will be driving in Spain and Portugal this summer and will definitely also have reliable road maps as well.

I'm a big fan of maps, and like to have a hard-copy map well in advance of travel. Studying the map can often lead to discovering something to see that's not necessarily covered in guidebooks. I have maps published by Borch for Florence and Venice, and I find them preferable to the Streetwise maps because they cover a larger area, and have great detail. I looked at their website and saw that they do publish one for Rome, although not for Naples.

I like to look at paper maps for irrational reasons even though I will use google maps too, to make up supposed written directions. I bought a Michelin laminated map of Rome in local brick and mortar a book store; they only had one map of Florence but my hostel is off that map, and they don't sell a map of Naples. I ordered Cartographia maps of Florence and Naples on amazon dot com, even though the maps are from 2008; few of the maps listed were published more recently; the Cartographia maps are mainly in English, the available Michelin maps of Florence and Naples are just as old and in Italian with some English. The local bookstore couldn't or wouldn't order the maps I wanted; Michelin is publishing a new map of Florence on July 7, 2017, or less than 2 months from now, but too late for me. The local bookstore had a Borch map of Rome too; Borch maps look like a nice comprehensive maps but they are too big and cover more area than I need. Maybe this all sounds irrational and I am going to know where I am going better than the locals.

Update....after two weeks traveling I have yet to bother with a paper map. My phone on T-Mobile has worked great. The car had a built in gps. Bicycling in Burgundy I'd check the route our rental shop suggested but punch into Google maps for the bike route, works great. Like i said in another post...times have changed.

No smartphones here yet although we have used the ipad occasionally. There's an app called "AroundMe" that my husband likes for locating things like the nearest bank/ATM, laundries, etc.

I'm a huge fan of paper maps and we use a variety of them. Our DK Eyewitness Rome Guide came with a very decent laminated map, and I have another for that city purchased at the bookshop. Paris, I bought an Insight Fleximap. For attractions off the map - which are rare - I'll print out a google-map capture of the area needed. And yes, doing a google walk from train station to hotel prior to the trip is helpful: I'll jot down some landmarks to watch for if we're covering a certain amount of distance. There can be some decent maps online as well if you dig for them. Pompeii (the scavi, not the city)? Here ya go:

http://www.pompeiisites.org/allegati/Pompei_120515053335.pdf

But we also bought a book there with a corresponding-numbered map.

For smaller towns/cities, maps picked up locally or included in the guidebook usually do the trick.