Best Michilin Maps To Take or Purchase?

I've had a GPS tell me to drive into the Rhine, through a mustard field, or towards the wrong town enough times to reinforce that there is no substitute for good map reading skills. Eastern France near Besancon towards the Swiss border in particular seems to be a GPS deadzone, for what reason, I have no idea.

For Michelin map books, here's my recommendation... depending on your itinerary, you can usually find the book you need at rest stops along the highways. At the beginning of each Michelin book, there's a large scale map showing the regions or countries covered by that particular book. In the index section, you'll find blow up maps of individual cities.

I particularly like Michelin books because they highlight scenic routes and historical sites.

Since I have country maps from AAA for France, Italy and Switzerland, I think I will go with the Michelin Atlas books for France & Italy. Thanks for your help.

Gary, Whoaaa!

Tom's right about the Michelin books, I treasure mine, but you might not need one for each country -- the weight and cost add up. My France one has lasted for seven evers, but at a scale of 1:200,000 it's more than I really need even for all of my poking around.

Chunk the damn AAA maps. After three refolds they start to tear and the lack of detail (scale is about 1 to 2,000,000) make them useless for anything but preliminary messing up with a magic marker on the kitchen table.

See if you can get a Frommers 'Road Atlas EUROPE'. It's spiral-bound and indestructable. The scale is 1:800,00. I can't find the date, but mine's probably ten years old, so that's at least a couple of dozen trips as my main map with a lot of abuse. It's easy as all get out to read in bright sun as well as low light. It also has the scenic routes highlighted as Tom mentions about the Micheline editions. I generally don't care much for what Frommers does, but they got this one right.

The other thing I don't travel without, for any country for which one exists, is a Michelin Green Guide.

Even with GPS and good maps it is a good idea to pack a compass. We always take one. Not only is a compass helpful on the road but also helpful when you are walking around a big city with a map.

If you have a general idea of your itinerary, you can print out just the maps you need at http://www.viamichelin.com/

Gary wrote: "Since I have country maps from AAA for France, Italy and Switzerland"

Gary, how did you get AAA maps for those countries? I don't see related on the AAA site except for the "Europe Travel Book", and I can't get to that link.

For our European road trips, we take the orange Regional Michelin map and the AA road atlas for whichever country we are visiting.

For the atlas, I prefer the larger size yellow book to the smaller size spiral book.

Amazon usually has the orange maps (6 miles to the inch) but the AA road atlas (3 miles to the inch) we usually order from Amazon.co.uk.

Take a couple of binder clips---they are helpful for keeping the Michelin map folded to the appropriate area.

Thanks everyone for all the good info.