[dljsjr]

Anybody remember Triptiks from AAA? You'd go to a AAA office or call them on the phone, tell them where you were going, and in return you'd get a printed spiral top-bound pad with your trip broken down in to multiple legs, the roads/routes pre-highlighted, gas stops and prices estimated in, a list of sites for stopping off at, etc. All human curated and human annotated (the roads on your route were literally gone over by a person with a Highlighter). I'm sure it was all pulled from some sort of centralized/normalized/standardized data source but the human touch was definitely there.

They were awesome. When we were growing up most big family trips were in the car because gas and hotels were just so much more affordable than flying an entire family anywhere. I got to be the "navigator" on so many trips by helping family members read the Triptiks.

Apparently AAA still offers these, but they're generated digitally now via their app, and you can print them off if you want. But something about those human-built Triptiks were really really special.

[massysett]

In a lot of ways, electronic maps are still inferior to the Triptik.

Even the Rand McNally showed highway rest areas and picnic areas. The Triptik also showed gas stations. Electronic maps often lack this entirely, at least in easy form.

The Triptik shows what you need to know while on a long motor trip. The electronic map emphasizes details I don't need.

At a glance the paper map tells me whether a road is free limited-access, toll limited-access, multi-lane divided, two lanes but major, two lanes and minor, a country lane, or a dirt road. Electronic map only tells me this if I zoom in on a satellite view, and it might even route me over a two-lane road to save five minutes on a two-hour trip when there's a much safer freeway that most drivers would prefer.

Paper map has little dotted lines for scenic routes. Electronic map doesn't.

Mostly I'm surprised the electronic maps don't have these things after all these years. Maybe Apple will get them eventually. Google is busy stuffing ads into its maps.

[larrik]

I've been growing pretty dissatisfied with the state of electronic maps. Basic things that are usually either impossible or difficult while using Google Maps or Apple Maps for directions:

- What road am I on? What town am I in?

  - and other flavors of "where the hell am I, anyway?"

  - This is especially annoying when on the phone and the person is asking where you are, and the best you can answer is "Google says I'm X minutes away"

- What road is this coming up next?

  - instead it puts the name halfway along the road, which is out of view...

  - Some of the true nav systems (Garmin, etc) do this better.

[TedDoesntTalk]

There's no way to see a street name on Apple Maps without zooming in entirely. And sometimes even then, I'll see something like Route 99 instead the name by which everyone refers to the road: "Broadway".

[nerdbert]

Google Maps is even worse about this.

Dear Google:

If I have my directions preference set to walking, cycling, or public transit, there is no reason to EVER show me the route number of a street that has a name. I don't care about it, and it actively gets in the way of using the map since it displaces the name, you know, the thing that is actually on the signs that I am looking at with my eyes.

It would be one thing if it showed both the name and the number, but usually you have to pinch and pan so far from where you are before you luck into seeing the name that you've totally lost your orientation on the map.

[stephen_g]

This annoys me too. I've submitted map feedback (holding and tapping 'Report a problem' on the map) before but who knows if that could make much of a difference. I assumed the route numbers are more of an American thing (although your comment seems to imply perhaps not)? We have them here but nobody I know here in Australia uses them or knows them, apart from major motorways. Maybe the other routes are used by truckers? Normal drivers though I would think only care about the street names.

It frustrates me to no end how hard it can be to see the names of streets in Maps, it's one of the most important things!

[larrik]

> I assumed the route numbers are more of an American thing (although your comment seems to imply perhaps not)?

In my area (Connecticut), it depends. Some streets are known by their route numbers, vs some streets have route numbers and most people aren't aware of them at all. It's more common to refer by route number if it's a busy main road that changes name from town to town that it passes through.

Then there's upstate New York, with plenty of streets that are only route numbers, despite being otherwise residential normal roads.

[TedDoesntTalk]

> assumed the route numbers are more of an American thing

Not for streets that go through a town or city and have maximum speeds of 30 mph (48 Kmh). And those are the streets that Maps displays route numbers. I don’t know of truckers using those streets.

[RomanAlexander]

Made even worse by traveling in a country with a language you can't read. sometimes it shows the native language, zoom in it might show an English transliteration. if you're showing it to a taxi driver it'll definitely not show the native language.

[rkagerer]

One thing that drives me nuts on Google Maps is "Search Nearby" doesn't leave your original point of interest (that you're searching around) on the map when showing results. Pretty sure it didn't used to be like this.

[ChuckMcM]

I'm pretty convinced that Google just doesn't understand information economics. In case you haven't noticed, Apple maps are getting better and better and I prefer their turn-by-turn directions over that of Google.

The interesting thing is that Apple now offers "explore" vs "driving" maps, I hope they also add "walking" or "Cycling" maps. And because they aren't driven by advertising sales, the maps can be more useful without compromising sales revenue.

If Apple decided to invest in a crawler/indexer with a search front end to give Siri the data sources for better response, and to allow for "pure" informational search (rather than search-ad/revenue prioritized search), once it got good enough for that it would put Google into a very tight spot. (Well tighter than the one it currently finds itself in).

[criley2]

Apple's solution isn't a serious contender because it's hardware locked to high end devices that the majority of people don't use / can't afford (the demographics of this community not withstanding).

While it's nice that their users can have an alternate first-party experience, that experience is not a publically available map. For example if you go to maps.apple.com you are told "Open this on your Apple Hardware".

(i.e. If 100% of Apple users used Apple Maps, Apple's best case scenario is still #2 in mapping)

[tannhaeuser]

Apple isn't a serious contender because their devices aren't sponsored by tracking/ads? You can also get an iOS device (partly) included with a post-paid mobile plan, can't you?

[lmm]

> Apple isn't a serious contender because their devices aren't sponsored by tracking/ads?

Apple isn't a serious contender because they don't sell anything in the low-end segment. Ferrari make great cars but you can't expect everyone to drive a Ferrari.

> You can also get an iOS device (partly) included with a post-paid mobile plan, can't you?

That acts as a payment plan, but you're still paying the full cost (usually plus interest) one way or another.

[GeekyBear]

A $399 iPhone SE that has gotten seven years of OS updates and is still getting security updates today is as cost effective as several bargain bin devices that have to be quickly replaced.

[sombragris]

About your second response (which is quite right), let me add that in my neck of the woods (and in many others), there's no way to get an iOS device with any postpaid plan, or any other cell phone plan, for that matter.

[criley2]

You literally didn't even quote my point correctly. This is called a strawman and it's extremely low effort and beneath the quality of this community.

Apple Maps isn't a serious contender because 1) it's not public 2) it's not web 3) iOS represents a minority of the world userbase.

Worldwide it's 70% Android and 20% Apple.

And let's not forget that Google Maps is available on iOS and Web. So you have "iOS only" vs "Android/iOS/Web/etc".

Obviously only one of those is a serious competitor.

[ChuckMcM]

One could argue that "most" people[1] have iPhones (at least in the US). And yes it is only 22% world wide. But putting aside the currently available "seats" for a moment, at the point where is it clearly the better product then two things start happening

1) People start buying Apple hardware because it has a better map experience.

2) Apple can produce the iMap device, likely in cooperation with their maps partner TomTom, that people can use to get the Apple Maps experience without changing their phone provider.

[1] https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/us-smartphone-market-share

[mangoleaf]

I live USA, Stanford engineer, have an Android phone and will likely never have an iPhone. My other gender breeding partner has to have an apple, so I use hers at times and am appalled at how difficult things are. But if she can't facetime friends, then she will lose face. I get free phones, and see pays large fees for hers. Sorry, I pass. I work in finance BTW.

[ChuckMcM]

I think that is great. FWIW I worked at Google and still have the original Dream phone in a box somewhere. And while I used iPads since the Android tablet experience never really congealed for me, used an Android phone until the iPhone 13 SE I currently own.

I am also a firm believer that everyone should "vote with their wallet" for the products they want, so no judgement, on my part, on folks who buy one product or the other.

In my experience I find that for every product I buy, the various choices all come with pluses and minuses. I go through that list and apply my own importance rating on each one and come up with my final choice.

My original comment was that Apple Maps are getting better, they were at one time a complete joke. I use maps on my phone all the time, it is probably the largest use of mine after "looking things up on the web" or "communicating" via text or voice. As a result of this improvement in maps, it made this particular choice (for me) a better choice on the iPhone than on an android phone.

I can tell that some people heard my comment above "if you don't own an iPhone you are stupid" or something like that. It certainly wasn't my intent. Never easy to know how something you say will be heard.

My other experience is that products that get "better" overall, supplant, then replace what existed before them. Whether it is TVs, cars, computers, or phones. I still have a Garmin Navigator in my car's glove box but I don't think I have used it in nearly a decade. And yet there was a time when devices of that form were 90+% of the market for "in vehicle navigation."

[freedomben]

While 55% is technically "most", there are hundreds of millions of people in that minority block. Definitely not a number to just dismiss from a function as important as mapping. As a member of that minority, I'm very grateful for non-hardware-locked mapping apps.

[ChuckMcM]

I 100% agree. What I was trying to communicate was that maps is a "feature" of a bigger platform "phone" and can be a discriminator for consumers on purchase. For example a consumer who uses their phone mostly for its maps and driving directions may choose a phone based on their best "maps" experience.

The reference article was discussing a resurgence in "paper" maps, which have three advantages over "electronic" maps that I am aware of; they work when you are "offline", they have specific details of interest, and they "look good."

My observation was that Apple appears to be investing in a better "map" experience on their phones. This resurgence might influence that investment.

Dismissing that observation based on market share is probably unwise. Why? Because market share is a function of serving customer requirements better than the competition. Market share is a reflection of meeting requirements, and in the absence of external forces will result in the brands with doing the best job of meeting requirements ahead of their competitors.

[phaedryx]

I've found that when I'm planning things I tend to use Google Maps, but when I get in the car I tend to use Apple maps. I swear there are little differences like Google instructions will be "In X feet... turn right" where Apple is "turn right at the stop sign" which is easier to follow.

[SoftTalker]

Yeah that’s nice but Apple Maps have also routed me down narrow rural roads, occasionally across private property, and proclaimed that I was at my destination when I was looking out the window at a vacant lot. In my experience, Google’s tech is better.

[soperj]

Definitely got routed way out of the way, over a toll bridge when it was completely unnecessary by Apple Maps. I don't use that any more.

[doktorhladnjak]

My take is it turns out this way because Google’s map data is better but Apple’s user experience is better. Google Maps seems to have completely stagnated on both data and user experience whereas Apple seems to be getting better on both fronts all the time. It’s Google’s market to lose.

[thorncorona]

Recently I've found that Google has started to put more effort into this area -- I've started getting directions like "Turn right at the next corner after the Chase bank."

[Fatnino]

That's called an ad

[eCa]

When it comes to cycling maps, I’d recommend checking out cycle.travel[1], its routing (at least over here in EU land) has been awesome. I’ve done a couple of week long trips planned on it.

No affiliation, just a happy user.

[1] https://cycle.travel/map

[kortilla]

>Mostly I'm surprised the electronic maps don't have these things after all these years. Maybe Apple will get them eventually. Google is busy stuffing ads into its maps.

Yeah, google is always going to be trash for anything that doesn’t align well with advertising. Better to show a Starbucks than a rest area, etc.

[dylan604]

so it's the gas station's fault for not buying Google Ads then, right? Google can't possibly be blamed. The don't do evil. It's just the people using their services that do evil things. /s

[colanderman]

Google Maps doesn't even show exit numbers unless you are incredibly zoomed in. They are near useless for at-a-glance visual navigation.

[tokenadult]

My user experience on several recent trips is that Google Maps showed me the exit number for the exit I would use next very prominently on top of the display (where it shows the direction of the next turn). Maybe that isn't rolled out consistently for all trips.

[colanderman]

Context is when you are not using GPS. (Personally I despise being talked at by a computer for an hour, especially one that's bad at directing a driver.)

With paper maps, you can just look at them -- a single page, no pinch zooming or scrolling! -- to see what exit is appropriate for your destination. Not possible with Google Maps -- you either have to zoom in until the exit ramp fills the screen, or make up a fake address near where you're going to get directions which you then have to read through to find the relevant exit. It's a needless frustration when I'm in a hurry and just what to know what exit serves town X.

[wpietri]

I feel you on the talking part. Especially maddening to me is where it talks over an in-progress conversation to tell us things we already know.

I now generally turn the audio part off except for alerts. I like that better, not only is it more soothing, but it forces me to engage my brain a little more.

[nemonemo]

Those two types of maps are targeting different groups -- paper maps targeting the somewhat advanced users who know the basic navigation and have little need to consult the legend. The electronic maps target much wider audience and can be dumbed down since people can interact with the map. Sure, the electronic maps probably can stuff more info to be shown at a glance, but my impression is that they chose not to.

[tuatoru]

> paper maps targeting the somewhat advanced users

Since when did using a map become an "advanced" life skill? Is "Idiocracy" becoming a documentary?

[nerdbert]

I am reliably amazed by how many people are completely unable to read a map these days. I hate turn-by-turn directions and never use them, with the result that I am naturally paying enough attention that I can always find my way back to anywhere I've been. People I travel with, who let themselves be led around from one corner to the next with their nose buried in a screen, can't understand how I do it.

[eternityforest]

Since it became unnecessary for most people? Phones can break, so it's always good to know the paper skills... but it's definitely not an everyday thing anymore.

Besides, even before phones, it was somewhat advanced, they were never easy, as shown by how often people got lost, and still get lost with perfectly functional GPS just by making one bad turn because their memory failed since last time they checked the screen.

[tuatoru]

Next you'll be telling me that people don't know how to darn their socks any more.

[eternityforest]

I'd even argue that darning socks might be more relevant to everyday life than map reading, even though map reading is more important in emergencies and people should probably know both.

If you can darn socks you can probably fix holes in your pants, and if you have a car charger, getting lost happens a lot less than clothes repair, at least in the city.

[kortilla]

Some of these things are too annoying to do at scale so they just skipped it rather than choosing to intentionally dumb it down.

Making the call on what is a “scenic route” isn’t something you can just pull directly from highway department data.

[dmurray]

You could predict it from Streetview data though! A small bit of computer vision would go a long way here. Actually this seems like a fun project for someone inside or (if the API is not too throttled) outside Google.

[eternityforest]

Or better yet, when someone drives anywhere, predict if there was a faster way they could have gone, and take that as a candidate scenic view.

[wyclif]

Former land surveyor here. Big fan of paper maps, even though I still use Gaia, FarOut, etc. My faves are the USGS topographical map sets. There's just something you can't replace about the experience of navigating using topo maps and a compass.

[kulahan]

Travel is such an personal thing - it's people in an environment at least somewhat foreign to them. Trusting someone to plan it is a pretty intimate thing, and companies don't do intimate things very well anymore. Too many people, too few companies.

I'd pay good money for more personal experiences from companies, especially when it comes to something like this, but it's not easy. The wife and I were looking for a honeymoon package, but neither "beach" nor "romantic European getaway" were on our list. Roughly 90% of travel companies were out of ideas after that. It's literally their JOB to plan trips and they can't deviate from a template. It's pain incarnate.

[marcosdumay]

If it's something like what we had at my country, it's not a travel plan.

It's a book, fully indexed, with searchable and fully reviewed information about the place you are going and the path in between. You use it to make your own plan, or to improvise.

Specifically about improvisation, it has become almost impossible nowadays because there is no reliable information about anything.

[convolvatron]

monetization really screwed this up. having a connected computer in your pocket with the ability to search everything and make shelter and travel reservations and perform other important actions instantly should really be perfect for this.

but somehow I always end up having to sign up for a bunch of services in a hurry and take crappy pictures of my id only to find out that the hotel doesn't know anything about my reservation when I arrive anyways.

sometimes I even have to upgrade my phone while sitting on a curb to get the app to arrange for the payment etc .etc.

or that lovely looking and affordable Airbnb is next to an open sewer

[marcosdumay]

It's not exactly monetization. It's plain dishonesty.

That killed plenty of guides before our current era of universal dishonesty.

[fbdab103]

I am boring, but one of the reason I keep wanting to take a cruise is because I do not want to plan anything. Show up at this place, at this time and then there will be a bunch of exotic* stuff to see/do/eat.

*Exotic very much being in the eye of the beholder, but something different from my daily costal urban experience.

[rgmerk]

For mine, the thing with group tours (aside from Other People) is that they are often the Disney World version of the place you’re visiting.

[rjh29]

I understand why that niche doesn't exist - most people looking for a personal experience tend to plan it themselves. Though it would be nice to say "I want to go here, here and here" and have someone book all of the hotels and transport.

[AlotOfReading]

You can totally do that at the luxury divisions of firms like Scott Dun and Protravel if you have the money. They'll even get you a chauffeur and dinner reservations at that high end restaurant if that's what you want. If you need anything mid-trip just call the 24/7 concierge and they'll figure out how to get it to you.

[Pxtl]

Travel agents still exist. If they don't know how to plan the vacation of your dreams, they know somebody who does. I used one to plan a trip to Florida, which was obviously a normal-ass tourist thing but they got in touch with another agent who knew the ins and outs of where to stay at the Space Coast and the pros and cons of onsite stay vs offsite for Disney.

[ghaff]

There are specialty outfits specific to an area/country and/or type of activity that I've used which are pretty good. But most mainstream travel agents have been book a cruise/flight/tour for pretty much forever.

My dad had one for years who was better than that but I've only sometimes used specialty agencies, e.g. for English walking trips.

[bobwaycott]

Just curious here—what sort of things were on your list that you couldn’t find? If there were better templates, what kind of trips would you expect to be able to plan?

[kulahan]

I'm referring to unknown unknowns here. I'm going to a completely foreign area, and I want to pay someone money instead of doing hours of research myself. It's just a huge pain in the ass made way harder by the fact that I don't know anything about the place, and the places I visited were all very rigid. Maybe the type of experience I'm looking for is not something I can afford, and that's why I haven't come across it?

[navane]

Most innovation sells you an inferior product for a lower price. It is almost never better than what was available in the past, just cheaper.

Life becomes a series of more, but lower value experiences.

[eternityforest]

It makes life easier at the expense of some indescribable sense of "quality" or connotations of "wealth", the feeling that the product makes a statement about the skill of the maker and the user, that there's real skill involved not just a technological cheat code in real life.

Which seems to be very culture specific, it's important to some but not others.

I don't have much doubt that people get lost less with phones now. It's reliable and available on demand at any moment. Basic utilitarian trips might even use less gas because if dynamic traffic data.

The main thing we lost is the sense that things are real and solid, rather than unearned power ups in a global scale video game, but by technical engineering measures, it seems like almost every single product outside of the arts has improved, year after year.

Old analog stuff is cool, but if I only had room in my bag for one, I'm probably going to take the latest new version, every time.

[brightlancer]

Rather than a subjective cultural "quality", I think there's an issue where folks are dependent upon technology and that handicaps their ability to learn or perform advanced skills.

In the US, younger students are performing worse in mathematics than previous cohorts; calculators aren't a singular cause but their ubiquity does encourage a mentality both from children and adults that basic arithmetic and even algebra or geometry aren't important, which then becomes worse performance by older students who lack the fundamentals.

I'd be interested to see a study on how often folks are "lost" and how that was defined: if someone's phone lost power or crashed mid-journey, then the person would qualify as lost because they don't know where they are or how to get out of where they are, but even with the phone _telling_ them where to go, do they really know where they are or how to get out of where they are? Or are they just a simple child being given and following directions from a parent, without any concept of what those directions mean?

[eternityforest]

It's the same problem math has always had for my whole life. The fundamentals are important to reach the high level stuff but no longer directly useful, and people aren't always sure whether they want to go into a field that needs it, until they are past the age where people used to learn the basics.

Algebra is not useful to an average person directly, and the path to actually getting a job that needs math is long enough that nobody in school is going to think through their future like that, we don't really have a culture of kids thinking a decade ahead. I sure didn't.

Plus, the main thing educators seem to talk about is this mysterious "New way of thinking" you get from math. But nobody just trusts their teachers on that, since it's not something that can be explained easily.

It probably doesn't help that they still like to pretend you're going to actually directly do long division IRL. Even if there's a reason to learn it, I don't see why we need to tell people they'll actually use it directly, when it seems pretty clear most people don't.

But that seems like a matter for educators to solve rather than tech or tech culture.

Is there a different optimal curriculum that takes into account the existence of calculators and the fact we learn math for different reasons now? Or is the best way to teach it unchanged?

Philosophically I suppose phone-dependent people are perpetually lost, but I think a practical definition would be "Unable to navigate to their destination with available equipment".

Someone who's phone dies isn't really experiencing what most know as lost unless they have no power bank or car charger, only then are they going to really be experiencing some panic.

[drdec]

The positive side of the trade off is that the technology is usually available to more people by being more affordable.

[bumby]

This is an interesting thought. What other examples are you thinking of besides the maps? And does this extend to innovations that create a whole new space, or is it just when innovation does an existing thing differently?

[skygazer]

I think this was the premise of the Innovator's Dilemma, which showed examples where disruptive competition comes from below, and catches big companies off guard, toppling them, all the while prior they were successfully optimizing their business, until poof.

[AlbertCory]

There's still an AAA office that I drive past all the time. Never been in there, though. I should go and ask for a Triptik sometime.

When I told people I went to Alaska, the inevitable answer was, "Oh, did you go on a cruise?" No, I didn't go on a forking cruise. Those are for lazy people.

What I've started doing is booking a short (2-4 days) trip inside the country or state, and being independent before & after that. You still get some guidance and socializing and seeing things you wouldn't otherwise, but your whole vacation isn't locked in. I recommend this.

[squokko]

Don't know why you hate cruises. Definitely the most cost effective way to see multiple spots on the Alaskan coastline.

[sizzzzlerz]

When I was a child, my parents took the tribe around the country for 2 months. We towed our trailer behind an International Traveall. To prepare, my mom worked with AAA to design the route we were going to take starting from our home in California, up to Seattle, across to Yellowstone and Glacier, across the midwest to Philadelphia, down the east coast to Florida then back home through the south, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada. The trip require a dozen of these books. I remember spending hours pouring through these prior to our leaving, just fascinated with all the roads, and cities, and attractions. We kept them for years afterwards and I continued looking at them for several years. Not sure what happened to them, however. Great times.

[HappyJoy]

Oh, yes! My Dad used to have these made for our summer road trips. I used to love pouring over the maps before the trip to get hyped up. Then, in the car, following along as we drove. I forgot about that till your comment reminded me. Thanks for the nostalgia!

[dylan604]

I always wanted the computer program Clark used to plan the route for the family trip to Wally World.

[shafoshaf]

But I was never able to chase the car with a Pac Man.

[boilerupnc]

Old-school AAA TripTik® Walkthrough [0]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcMih8fjq5Q

[dljsjr]

This is amazing! It's exactly how I remember them in my head!

[worthless-trash]

Thank you from those of us not in the US.

[JCM9]

Yes. I remember going into the AAA office with my dad before family vacations to pick them up. They gave you a whole pre-trip briefing too on current construction, tips and any issues you might encounter. While apps like Waze do a great job of getting you from A-Z they completely lack the contextual information about where you’re going, things to see along the way and other details. One really had to pay a lot more attention to what was happening too vs just waiting for some voice in a box telling you to turn off the highway. Rest stops and roadside attractions where part of the adventure too vs todays boring cookie cutter outfits with the same chains.

I probably sound old and nostalgic but there were some things that were just “better” when life was a bit slower and not completely driven by tech—-and I’m someone that works in tech!

Those trips really felt like an adventure whereas now it’s just push some buttons and drive.

[jll29]

In theory, I can set my car navigation system to "Paris" now and drive there for a coffee (in about 9 hours or 788 km). I can even half-way change my mind and drive to Prague instead, without any preparation. The car will make sure that a lot of silly mistakes will be avoided, at the expense of perhaps some new silly mistakes (but fewer than without navigation system, for most casual drivers).

Of course, that modern ability lacks the anticipation, excitement and celebration of the annual family trip experience that you talk about, and yes, a personalized physical map that not just aids your navigation to your holiday/vacation destination but later becomes a memory artifact/artefact when said road trip is fondly remembered and re-imagined.

We invent electronic replacements for things and processes without giving much thought to the positive aspects of the experience that we may wish to retain (or better: re-create) before replacing them. Naturally, the first iterations of the substitute will be lacking. Later refinements will be evaluated relative to previous versions of the electronic replacement, not the original experience, which is soon forgotten. That's why many electronic/automatic replacements are lacking: examples include manual maps versus car navigation systems, human layout creation versus DTP publishing, traditional printing versus print on demand, traditional slide photography and development versus digital photography. The new is not just a replacement of the old, it is different. But the new often renders the old uneconomical and makes it disappear, like it or not, even when they tell us that the new thing is "complementary" to the old. For better or worse, free market economy does not have a place for something _and_ its substitute, only the cheaper one of the two.

I would pay for a nicely printed and bound, personalized street map of a planned family holiday/vacation if the price was appropriate, and they did not ask me for the date and time of departure... ;-)

[lmm]

It's easier than ever to go off on an adventure if you want to. Any turn you like, you can take, you don't have to worry about getting lost. Anywhere you think looks like a nice detour, you can add it in and see immediately how much time it's going to add.

Most people don't bother, but I don't think that's the technology's fault. The technology absolutely supports it.

[lanstin]

True but it also depends on who is in the car with you. I have to turn aside randomly if I have taken a route too many times, whether by car, foot, or bicycle. Trains and buses I am more happy to just do the routine.

[madrox]

As a kid on many a roadtrip in the 80s, I have a special fondness for triptiks. It gave me something to focus on and it gave my parents some peace as I quietly studied maps. I have a vivid memory of going to AAA before a roadtrip where someone would walk us through the route they chose.

However, it's all nostalgia. There is nothing about them that I would've preferred over a phone or tablet with working internet, had they been a thing back then.

[eternityforest]

There's nothing about anything that anyone prefers over a phone with working internet...

It's almost like a local maximum, if you plot (total happiness-total boredom) against (total screen hours).

Almost no individual activity is more appealing than scrolling (As we can infer from most people's behavior these days), but people will tell you that they want a life that isn't just scrolling and mobile games, and people are happier when they do more than screens.

[chordalkeyboard]

AAA will also print them themselves and mail them to members upon request.

[jhallenworld]

I just tried the online site: my complaint is that they only show AAA-rated places to eat. On the other hand, the "5 diamond" places look really nice... it might be interesting to try some of them. I forgot all about AAA-rated restaurants.

[Turing_Machine]

The Milepost used to be essential for those who traveled in Alaska and Northwestern Canada. It's still quite useful, given that there are plenty of places there that don't have cellular service or any other kind of internet access.

https://themilepost.com/about-us/

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

I remember going to AAA offices where they would pull out a map and use highlighter on the spot and mark up the map in front of you. Nothing was prepared in advance.

Google Maps is constantly making weasel changes to try to get people to sign in and inserting ads for businesses. OpenStreetMaps is great offline, no sign-in required, but it's still too janky.

[nerdbert]

OSM is far superior to Google or Apple if you're not driving or riding public transit. They have much better pedestrian/cycle accessibility data. Google will send you on preposterous detours on a bike, whereas OSM gives you exactly what you need to know to take the shortest viable route.

[dimator]

Well, realistically, if the AAA highlighter operator was later compelled to testify as to your driving plan, they would.

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

Google does not need to go through the courts to obtain not only the driving plan but also where the maps user actually travels.

Google does not need to file a complaint that survives a motion to dismiss, reach the discovery phase of litigation and then subpoena AAA in order to obtain a driving plan for one specific driver. It continuously collects driving plans passively and indiscriminantly.

In litigation, testimony might be sealed. The data Google collects via Google Maps has no such protections available.

Let's be "realistic". Most people getting maps highlighted at AAA offices were not parties in lawsuits, the AAA employees that provided maps to them were not deposed by lawyers, and their driving plans were not used to prop up on online ad services racket. Yet every person that uses Google Maps is being surveilled for commercial purposes.

Flooding the web with more programmatic advertising.

[jjeaff]

Went on a road trip 2 years ago and an older family member went to AAA in socal and got a physical triptik book for the trip.

[0x445442]

Yep, TripTiks we’re awesome. With map apps I feel as though I’m constantly battling them as I always expect the top of the map/phone to represent north.

Maybe it was because I grew up in a rural area but I much prefer NSEW directions and looking at a physical map.

[wirrbel]

The German equivalent still offers this and out of curiosity I ordered it once it was fairly disappointing, a map, some travel info, thats about it.

[dieselgate]

As of about 7 years ago AAA was where I'd always go to get paper maps in general - wasn't aware of Triptiks at all

[green-salt]

Ended up using this once for a short trip, but about a year later ended up getting a satnav device.

[mxuribe]

I had always heard of this - and so highly regarded for years(!) - but never used myself.

[vVv111y]

Former navigator here ready to go. I was just like that, unforgettable memories

[cafard]

Yes, though I don't remember the highlighting.

[Stratoscope]

I loved TripTiks! And yes, I too was the family navigator as a kid, whether with a TripTik or an ordinary road map.

My other claim to fame was that I was the only one in the family - maybe in the entire neighborhood - who could fold a paper map so everything fell into place and it looked like new.

All the adults would just force the map to fold along whichever creases they felt like folding. I let the map "fold itself" with the map deciding where it wanted to be folded, and me just executing the map's wishes.

Specifically, first I would find the one crease that ran all the way across the map in the same direction - it was a "valley" or a "tent" all the way across, depending on which side you were looking at.

Then I'd find the next crease that was the same across the now-folded map. And the next one, and so on.

Adults didn't know this trick. They would fold along the creases, but they didn't take the time to let the map teach them which crease to fold first.

This is kind of like something I learned recently when I rescued a stray kitten from the street: You don't find a cat, the cat finds you.

Back to TripTiks, I bought one on eBay a few months ago, and it turned out to be an awesome road trip a southern California family took in the late 1960s.

First is the "front matter", with pages on:

  Using your TripTik
  Strip Map Legend
  About Accommodations
  In Case Of Accident
  Western Radio Stations
  The SPEED that's set is your best bet
  Trip Planning
  Expenses
  Entering Canada and Returning to the United States
  A Summary of Safety Responsibility Laws in Canada

Now we start the trip from Temple City, near Pasadena. Many of the pages were 2-3 page foldouts. I will use the original state abbreviations instead of our modern two-letter ones.

  Temple City to I-10 East
  I-10 to I-15 through San Bernardino
  San Bernardino to Las Vegas
  Local map of Las Vegas
  Las Vegas to Beaver, Utah
  Beaver to Salt Lake City
  Local map of Salt Lake City
  Salt Lake City to Logan, turning onto US 89 East
  Logan to Alpine, Wyo.
  Alpine to Yellowstone National Park
  Local map of Yellowstone
  Yellowstone to Gillette, Wyo.
  Gillette to Deadwood, S. Dak.
  An optional loop all around the Black Hills Region
  A TripTik Supplement for US 85/14/94 where they didn't have the map
  Belfield, N. Dak. to Bismarck, N. Dak.
  Bismarck to Fargo and on to US 81
  Fargo to Winnipeg, Man.
  Winnipeg to Kenora, Ont.
  Kenora to Port Arthur on the Thunder Bay
  Port Arthur to Nipigon, Ont.
  Nipigon to Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
  Sault Ste. Marie to North Bay, Ont.
  Another missing-map supplement for North Bay to Ottawa, Ont.
  And finally a local map of Ottawa, their destination

Every one of these TripTik pages has a description of the towns and cities along the way, with hotel, motel, restaurant, and service station listings.

Thanks for mentioning TripTiks. It was fun for me to go through this road trip in my mind and on paper just now.