For driving trips, the right map or maps can be crucial in route planning. You can plan relatively short hops using one or two road maps, but a multistate odyssey will require more. In that case, a road Altas--a book of maps, organized by state or sometimes geographic area--is handy indeed. No need to rifle through a pile of maps to find the one you want, or call up a lot of maps on the screen of a handheld device (and Atlases never need recharging, either).
A number of companies publish road maps and Atlases, and they are available almost everywhere books and magazines are. They're also commonly sold in gas stations or convenience stores, especially those located on highways or near tourist attractions. AAA members can request excellent road maps for no extra charge, and free state road maps are often available at information centers near state borders or at Interstate rest stops.
Maps published by professional map publishers (Rand McNally, Michelin, Universal and others), AAA and state maps are generally of a far higher quality than maps that come with tourist literature, which are sometimes little better than sketches with cartoon illustrations. Sometimes, however, good driving maps can be found in tourist-oriented guide literature. That's especially true for smaller and more remote towns that the major map publishers don't cover in detail.
Another map alternative is to go to MapQuest or GoogleMaps or YahooMaps, create a route, and print it out. Or look it up en route using a handheld device. This is best for short trips, but a lot of detail is lost on longer trips.
Is the best route really a straight line from point A to point B? It depends. For travelers who want to get to their destination without delay, it probably is. Usually it doesn't take much study of a map to determine the fastest road between two cities, or across a few states.
For a more complicated trip involving many stops and routes on several different roads, spend some time with your map to get a sense of the best alternatives. It really depends on what you want. If, for example, you're not interested in making a lot of stops for tourist activities, and don't care one way or the other about scenic drives, stick as closely as possible to the Interstates that connect your destinations. But if you don't mind a slower place with more stops, consider taking U.S. highways or state roads at least part of the way.
For paper maps, a yellow marker or highlighter is a good idea for marking the route you want to take. Even computer printouts of route maps benefit from highlighting, since it allows the driver (during a stop) or navigator to see the route at a glance.
Unless you're a completely carefree traveler, you're also going to want to estimate the mileage that a trip will take. Any road map worth its salt is going to have a mileage chart that tells you the distance between major cities. Mileage between smaller places can be determined by looking at the map itself, which features the number of miles on sections of road, marked by small black or red arrows. It's also possible, before your trip, to use a mileage calculator on the Internet to figure out about how far you need to go.
Road maps actually have a lot more information than city or town locations and the roads that connect them. There's also information on natural features, parks and other points of interest. Sometimes even the most casual glance at a map--not while you're driving--reveals a point of interest that the traveler might never have heard of before, but which sounds intriguing.
For a well-planned map route, then, the map itself is just the beginning. Once the traveler has a good idea of the route, then he or she can use supplementary material to find out whether different places along the route are worth their time or money.
Guide books are still a good bet in that regard, but the Internet also offers a good amount of information--provided you get past the sites that merely want to sell you a hotel room or rental car. Visitors and convention bureau websites of the cities and towns on your route are good places to start. You can investigate sites before your trip and print out information, or if you have a handheld device, you can look things up along the way, assuming there's a connection (and again, not while you're driving).
