Something I find really fun when traveling in the car with kids is to give them a paper map and ask them to plan a route a for us to get to our destination. Then when you're driving ask them to follow along and give the directions. Obviously they can't be too young and they're not going to be perfect, but if you have a child around 7-13 they'll probably find this quite fun. Being able to use a map is one of those ski…
> Being able to use a map is one of those skills which admittedly isn't all that useful today I've met people who constantly get completely lost despite the use of the phone. The issue with the phone is that especially under rain or trees, the position can be off of several hundreds meters, so you have to look around and find yourself on the map, because the phone really has no idea and is just guessing. The compass…
Paper map sales are booming
121–130 of 326 posts
Re: Paper map sales are booming
#122Something I find really fun when traveling in the car with kids is to give them a paper map and ask them to plan a route a for us to get to our destination. Then when you're driving ask them to follow along and give the directions. Obviously they can't be too young and they're not going to be perfect, but if you have a child around 7-13 they'll probably find this quite fun. Being able to use a map is one of those ski…
The flippant attitude that people have towards map-reading today is appalling. Maybe its the eagle scout in me but how can someone NOT want to learn to read a map? It isn't even that hard! What happens if your device fails you?
I believe it is a valuable skill to maintain or develop. Kids most obviously develop it now through games like Minecraft, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a correlation between navigational skills and general memory ability.
Re: Paper map sales are booming
#123Anybody 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 ove…
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.
Re: Paper map sales are booming
#124Paper maps can have pitfalls to their usage. The family of James Kim ended up lost in the Oregon wilderness because they took an ill-advised route based on using their paper map. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kim
both systems need to be updated with better and current information, and yes, internet connected is easier to update, but is also now receiving spam.
Re: Paper map sales are booming
#125The biggest producer of physical nautical charts has had to withdraw from the market as they have become unprofitable.
The increased availability of good open geospatial data along with amazing free open source tooling has made making beautiful maps easier than ever. Tools like QGIS and blender are world class
Maybe contentious but is it really a map if it's hung on a wall for artistic merit? At what point is it considered art?
Re: Paper map sales are booming
#126Anybody 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 ove…
Old-school AAA TripTik® Walkthrough [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcMih8fjq5Q
Re: Paper map sales are booming
#127Anybody 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 ove…
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 hon…
Re: Paper map sales are booming
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
an interesting thought experiment is to ponder just how many skills are being lost due to technology. I know how to read a map and how to find rough compass bearings but i was never in a situation where i needed either skill. Could i manage without GPS - probably but i’m not confident. If GPS died tomorrow because of a solar flare, would the younger generations manage?
My GF has been telling about how there's a lot kids at her school that don't know how to tell the time on analogue clocks anymore. She says it's because kids don't interact with analogue clocks much anymore and Covid lockdowns meant that a lot of kids never learnt it in school either. So apparently there is now a generation of kids who are around 10 - 12 who have no idea how to read the time from an analogue clock.
Re: Paper map sales are booming
#129Something I find really fun when traveling in the car with kids is to give them a paper map and ask them to plan a route a for us to get to our destination. Then when you're driving ask them to follow along and give the directions. Obviously they can't be too young and they're not going to be perfect, but if you have a child around 7-13 they'll probably find this quite fun. Being able to use a map is one of those ski…
The flippant attitude that people have towards map-reading today is appalling. Maybe its the eagle scout in me but how can someone NOT want to learn to read a map? It isn't even that hard! What happens if your device fails you?
Re: Paper map sales are booming
#130I thought I was the Luddite, I have a leather bound north America map in my 300D for when the mobile phone networks get shutdown by solar flares.