Trip planning/directions

[vdeane]

Vespertine's route plans are art. Wish I had the talent and time to do that. I can see how that would make navigating a lot easier. As for memorizing a route like Mapmikey, I don't think I could memorize a route of more than 5 turns. Congratulations for mastering that. Agree that GMSVing intersections and turnarounds ahead of time is very useful. Sometimes it's a lot easier to remember what the little church or VFD building at the end of a route looks like than finding a hidden ESM sign or noticing a pavement change.

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.

I agree with Froggie, having mapview loaded on the iPad is essential while on the road. Is there a way to get "mark current location" to work when the iPad is using a hotspot?

FYI, while the "without traffic" time used to mean "without any unusual congestion", it now means "every light green, no other cars on the road, feel free to fly down unimpeded at 80 mph".  As a result, around 4-5 years back I changed to using the live time as reported at a similar time/day of the week to when I would leave for the trip (or that segment, given that I usually have to break them up due to the 10 point limit).

[oscar]

Actually Delormes maxes out at 100 waypoints. I discovered this 5-6 years ago when I was plotting out my Lincoln Highway in Iowa revisited trip.

Streets and Trips can break that limit. One of my files (for a two-and-a-half month road trip to and from Alaska in 2012) has 142 waypoints.

[mapcat]

Maybe you can start a new research project, for my alma mater, for a new map program that is more flexible than Gmaps, but more portable than the old DeLormes & Streets & Maps programs.
Present your research proposal at the 2023 Ohio Roadmeet (wherever I decide to hold lunch at, in Columbus or Delaware)  

Ha, no, I'm afraid of any coding beyond what maintaining .wpts requires.

FYI, while the "without traffic" time used to mean "without any unusual congestion", it now means "every light green, no other cars on the road, feel free to fly down unimpeded at 80 mph".  As a result, around 4-5 years back I changed to using the live time as reported at a similar time/day of the week to when I would leave for the trip (or that segment, given that I usually have to break them up due to the 10 point limit).

That tracks with my experience too, although it seems somewhat location-dependent. I rarely maintain a "wot" pace in built-up areas during the daytime, although in rural areas of Texas this past summer, I often beat it, despite staying closer to the speed limit in that state. In Kentucky, I almost always come out ahead. But not on this trip.

Actually Delormes maxes out at 100 waypoints. I discovered this 5-6 years ago when I was plotting out my Lincoln Highway in Iowa revisited trip.

Streets and Trips can break that limit. One of my files (for a two-and-a-half month road trip to and from Alaska in 2012) has 142 waypoints.

I'd think the 7-10 year age of those programs would be more trouble than the extra waypoints are worth.

[oscar]

Actually Delormes maxes out at 100 waypoints. I discovered this 5-6 years ago when I was plotting out my Lincoln Highway in Iowa revisited trip.

Streets and Trips can break that limit. One of my files (for a two-and-a-half month road trip to and from Alaska in 2012) has 142 waypoints.

I'd think the 7-10 year age of those programs would be more trouble than the extra waypoints are worth.

Super-large S&T files are hard to manage anyway. I usually break up my files into smaller segments.

[Jim]

I agree with Froggie, having mapview loaded on the iPad is essential while on the road. Is there a way to get "mark current location" to work when the iPad is using a hotspot?

To the best of my knowledge, there's nothing that would stop Mapview from obtaining locations as long as your device is providing them.  It gets locations through the geolocation functionality of the underlying Leaflet library.  I think if other things like Google Maps are seeing your location, then Leaflet, and hence, Mapview, should be able to do the same.

[Duke87]

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.

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.