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Trip planning/directions
Duke87:
--- Quote from: mapcat on December 26, 2022, 09:41:55 am ---Guessing that the DeLorme and Streets & Trips users have issues with GMaps' limit of 10 waypoints? I default to GMaps (and save the urls in text files) despite sometimes having to break a long day into 10 or more individual routings. Actually the breaks are kind of useful for gauging how close I am to the predicted time. The lines on the sheet I posted correspond to the ends of each partial route, with the time Google predicted "without traffic" there to let me know how far ahead of or (usually) behind ideal I happen to be.
--- End quote ---
I get around the waypoint limit by only plotting individual trip segmnents at once. I don't need to save the directions or anything from it, I only need the time it spits out for reference.
I'll use the live time it spits out (unless there is some unusual situation making that no good), round to the nearest 5 minutes, and then add 5 minutes per hour to compensate for Google being overly aggressive.
Anyway my directions for trips are typically typed, not handwritten. Fortunately thanks to my wife's job I pay nothing for paper and printer ink. Here's the first of two pages from a trip I took this past summer:
Worth noting this isn't necessarily followed to the T - this was only the pre-trip plan, it omits several cases where I took a side trip to clinch a short route I happened to be passing by the end of (e.g. NM 395) or go check out something I'm near (e.g. Elephant Butte Dam). I often decide to make little additions like that on the fly if I have time. Generally I would rather have extra time and add things than find myself running behind and have to subtract things, so I plot accordingly.
kjslaughter:
I use Excel spreadsheets to plan all of my trips. I track between each stop Drive Time, Miles, Arrive Time and Time at Stop. I then sum up the entire day to make sure I don't bite off more than I can chew. I've used this for all of my courthouse planning and expanded into any just random drives where my time at stop might be zero. I then print the spreadsheet to have in the car to track how far behind I'm running (I always run across something cool or unexpected that puts me behind schedule!). I should add I also use Atlas Obscura, Roadtrippers and a review of the National Historic Register by county on Wikipedia to find interesting sites in addition to my focus on courthouses. I'll list these on spreadsheet too with address and hours.
I should mention my background is accounting and finance, so Excel is my go to for everything. ;-) It's useful though as I have a record of all my past trips. During pandemic, I laid out a huge spreadsheet of future trips with rough routes to visit all courthouses in all the southeastern states (finished GA last year, but mapped out AL, SC, NC, TN, and MS into several 4-5 day trips each). Plan is to slowly chip away at my list now.
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