I never plan in advance and don't always use a GPS when traveling if it is evident where I am going. It would be nice to after the fact plot where we've been. Once we get underway we just randomly decide on the spur of the moment.
. . . goal here is to produce maps of our past travels . . .
. . .where we chased down over 100 covered bridges . . .
. . . but really, really, enjoy being able to preselect a custom route and having the GPS give us every turn with prewarning as we go. It makes the travel much more enjoyable as never watching for turns or reading maps . . .
I am starting to get the hang of google's My Maps (MM) . . . The coordinates can be output as a file for import into other mapping programs . . .
A potpourri of thoughts inspired by these recent posts:
BIFURCATION - - Navigation & Documentation
Dave, we’re like you, we hardly ever plan . . . and, yes, it feels like we “randomly decide” on a route . . . we just follow the steering wheel.
But, as we read Booster’s comments, it occurred to us that our last post may have left out a third reason for mapping: Real-Time Navigation. We’re not sure if Booster ‘plans’ those “custom routes” or, like us, picks a tentative destination as we get in the campervan and let’s his navigation program ‘on-the-spot’ offer a proposed route, or, uses a route previously generated through Planning. In either event, we should have included Real-Time Navigation as a third objective of mapping. We can hardly drive across town without plugging-in our destination. And when ‘the co-pilot’ chides “Winston, you’ve driven this route a thousand times, don’t you know how to get there?” we smile, reminding our detractor: “Traffic, alternative shorter ‘time’ routes, accidents, obstacles and police” - - ever-changing, valuable information available with just a few preliminary keystrokes. And we particularly like the way Google Nav (our chosen Nav app) handles our whimsies . . . our last-minute deviations from Google’s ‘suggested’ route. “She” yells at us a little . . . until realizing that maybe our deviation was intentional . . . where she quickly calculates and recalculates routes always based on where we then are. We couldn’t agree more Booster, the combination of GPS and navigation programs have made driving “much more enjoyable.”
And while it might be nice to have one “do everything” device/program that handles both navigation and documentation, as our opening post shows, we’ve elected to let the smartphone, with its built-in GPS, Google Nav app, and cellular internet connectivity, handle the navigation function while the Surface tablet and ‘dash-deposited’ Garmin hand-held GPS conspire to perform the documentation function.
DOCUMENTATION - - When?
“It would be nice to after the fact plot where we've been,” Dave notes. Indeed, it seems that most contributors to this thread have a desire to retain a record (map) of their travels.
Dave, yes, you can wait “after the fact” until you get home, or until next winter, to create the map itself. However, it has become clear to us that literally ‘re-creating’ the history of a route already completed is tedious, difficult, and arguably ‘impossible’ - - at least to the detail and accuracy we’ve shown in our opening post.
So, for us, the better solution is to collect the underlying ‘lat/long’ data real-time. And this can be done surprisingly effortlessly while traveling leaving the more tedious manipulation and plotting of that data to the off-season winter fireplace.
Our proposed hand-held Garmin GPS offers one such approach - - turn it on, throw it on the dash, forget it. And if you don’t want to worry about batteries, just connect it to one of those ubiquitous USB power sources that now populate most Class B’s. And while there have been several mentions of smartphone apps that can record data (and probably map it), we still think the stand-alone handheld GPS approach offers a less complicated solution that is far less likely to be ‘interrupted’ by any of the problems we find with smartphones (battery going dead, being an obvious one).
GOOGLE MAPS - Peteco
Peteco, one of the objectives of this thread was to explore ways of mapping/plotting tracks for trips already completed. As just discussed, we think the better approach is to collect the data ‘enroute’ real-time. But there are many that are in your position who ‘didn’t’ collect that data but still wish to create maps of their travels.
We were expecting someone to tackle Googe Maps and are happy to see your results. A few questions. All those ‘waypoints’ on the map - - is this the way Google must be programmed in order to create a complicated route such as you’ve shown? Is there a way of deleting the waypoints for a cleaner map look?
Maybe of more interest, can you tell us more about the file export? If one could get a clean set of lat/longs, Google might be the best solution for ‘after-the-fact’ mapping.
It does seem, however, that creating all those waypoint could be time-consuming - - so we’ll stick with our GPS that “just sits on the dash”.
PS to Dicktill: More than a hundred covered bridges in Vermont??!! Guess we're going to have to return and plot a few more tracks through Vermont!
