<p>My father decided that he wanted to drive me to college this year. Well it will be from ky to maine and I was wondering if there is a map or website that any of you would recommend that would give us the best directions.My father keeps talking about safe map or something but I cannot find anything online about it. My mother’s friend offered to let us use her navigational system but he refuses to use it. Thanks!</p>
<p>If you or anyone is a member of AAA, they used to do triptik map</p>
<p>I just buy a road atlas with all the states and print out google or mapquest maps for wherever I get off the highway. Most of the atlases will have maps of the larger cities. I don’t have a particular favorite I just get one that our gas station carries.</p>
<p>AAA still does triptiks, and if you’re a member, you can also get them yourself on line. I’ve found the triptiks to be much more precise and reliable than mapquest.</p>
<p>Try googlemaps or mapquest.</p>
<p>Chedva, did I actually spell triptiks right? Wow, we used one in 1985 moving from CT to CA. I have a GPS in my car and also use google. They are both not always totally reliable. I like the triptiks because they also give you hotels, places of interest, etc.<br>
Seems to me that along with roadside service when you are going on a long trip it is worth joining AAA. (I have nothing to do with them, am not even a member anymore).</p>
<p>Let your dad drive and you use the gps.<br>
Bring a Road Atlas - you can get the big ones at Wal-Mart. This will get you to Maine. Then use the GPS or googlemaps to get you to your school.<br>
It should be a fun trip!</p>
<p>Another vote for AAA. I have always got my money’s worth from both emergency roadside and/or motel and other travel discounts. I usually only get maps from AAA but they do offer the triptiks and travel consultation.</p>
<p>I’d ditto JustAMomOf4’s advice. I’m a gps convert after our summer college tour. You can hold the gps in your lap and the directions will be read aloud by the machine (w/map displayed). The Garmin StreetPilot 340 is a great one (& affordable, $171). Borrowing a friend’s–even better. So much easier than struggling w/maps (although I did mapquest for each destination as a back-up).</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>This is just based on my personal experience, but whatever you decide to use–GPS, mapquest, etc.–you should definitely also have the relevant maps in the car. </p>
<p>I’m going to sound like an old geezer here, but there’s no substitute for a good old map as a backup. It isn’t subject to mechanical failure, and it will let you get a big-picture sense of what you’re trying to do, as well as letting you correct for mistakes by taking alternate routes instead of backtracking.</p>
<p>Yes, my kid went off to a party last year with a friend of his with nothing but the google directions. They took a wrong turn and immediately got thoroughly lost. Dopes. I really was tempted to give his friend a county map as a graduation present.</p>
<p>Check both mapquest and googlemaps. I have found that they do not always offer the same route for arriving at the same destination. One may prove better than the other. </p>
<p>I would really encourage you to also get the friend’s Nav. system and use it yourself if your Dad is not interested. S2 used one to navigate his way to his college orientation traveling with a h.s friend through urban areas they were totally unfamiliar with and got there with no problem.</p>
<p>We go everywhere with lots of back-ups. We have a GPS, our AAA maps and triptiks, mapquest, etc. Our GPS is old, so some places it just doesn’t work well - like around Disney, where there are lots of new roads. And it doesn’t always give us the shortest or most direct route. But I love it for things like how many miles to the next instructions, or how much longer the trip is going to take. But the combination of things really works best for us. Where we hit back-ups due to construction or accidents, it is so nice have a detailed map to find the alternate routes.</p>
<p>I like and own all sorts of electronic devices, but not a gps. Somehow I have just never liked them. I would rather find my way by the position of the sun or - heaven forbid - ask directions.</p>
<p>edad - lol. We joke often about the number of men we know who can’t stand to take directions from their wives, but who program their GPS with a female voice. :)</p>
<p>Having a GPS on my recent college road trip saved my marriage. And it was worth it’s weight in gold for navigating us through New Jersey. It was also useful when we wanted to do a spur of the moment quick driveby of a college in a town we were passing through - the points of interest feature was able to navigate us to the college and back to our regular route.</p>
<p>Four years ago, I did another road trip, complete with maps (from Rand McNally online) in a huge binder. Out of the other 3 people in the car, only 1 could navigate well, but she hated it.</p>
<p>I vote for GPS as well. I never got the idea of the thing, then we got one and WOW! BEST INVENTION EVER!!!</p>
<p>looks like gps wins here. i told my mother about his objection and she said we were just going to bring it anyway. we have a tendency to get lost when he takes us to foreign places (new orleans a couple years back). i also checked out the AAA map and it gave a shorter route than google and mapquest (which gave us a 18-19 hr trip compared to 16 hours with triptik).</p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p>Funny about timing sometimes. I just used the online version of triptiks today for a quick college visit tomorrow. It was better than mapquest or the program streets and trips. </p>
<p>One warning about GPS systems and mapquest that has happened to a couple of people I know: sometimes the routes are not the fastest or don’t use the best roads. Just last week someone I know used a GPS system to get from TX to IN. It took them down several gravel roads instead of highways. It ended up taking them a few extra hours.</p>
<p>lol.</p>
<p>I used to say to my friends…we need to program the GPS to have a deep male voice which says: “Turn left in one mile…and you are looking <em>very</em> attractive…and quite thin…today.”</p>