It’s the season for road trips and sunshine. You should bring a map along with your electronic GPS to make the most of this four-wheeled adventure.
“The best reason to keep paper maps in your vehicle, especially on long road trips, is because GPS isn’t always reliable,”Cynthia Ochterbeck is the editorial director at Michelin Travel Partner.
A Harris Interactive survey of 2,200 U.S. motorists who used GPS found that 63 per cent said the technology had led them astray at most once. This could be because it pointed them in the wrong directions or created confusing, confusing, and inaccurate routes.
It may seem as though paper maps have been lost to Atari’s Pong. However, they are still very important and offer many benefits not available with GPS devices.
“One of the greatest characteristics of paper maps is that you get all of the details, [such as] points of interest,” says Ochterbeck. “Plus, you don’t risk getting lost when you lose the signal or the battery dies on your cell phone or GPS device.”
A second benefit is the reliability of the information. Plus, new specialized maps, like Michelin’s Zoom MapsWe are trying to improve the experience of using paper maps.
While most people know Michelin for its tires and other products, many don’t realize that it has an 112-year-old history of creating maps, travel guides, and maps. It was actually responsible for creating the maps used by the Allies in their D-Day invasion. The new Zoom Maps, which improve on this history, offer seven maps that can be used for travel within the U.S.A. with the ability of zooming in on urban areas. The new maps also include a “not-to-be-missed”The event calendar for each region is conveniently folded so that you don’t need to open the entire map.
“Technology is great, but a printed map is one of the most important tools a traveler in an unfamiliar setting can have — the battery doesn’t die, it is easy to use, and it allows you to make decisions on route changes if necessary,” says Ochterbeck. “Even better, there are no roaming or data charges to worry about.”
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