Difference between revisions of "Maps"

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'''Maps''' are essential to hitchhiking. Make sure you always have a good map with you, the scale should at least be 1:700.000.
 
'''Maps''' are essential to hitchhiking. Make sure you always have a good map with you, the scale should at least be 1:700.000.
In Western Europe and a few other countries it is very important to have a map that shows [[petrol station hitchhiking|petrol stations]], service areas, toll gates and other important places on the motorways.
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In Western Europe and a few other countries it is very important to have a map that shows [[petrol station hitchhiking|petrol stations]], service areas, toll gates and other important places on the motorways. A map with a scale of 1:250.000 will still allow you to recognize enough details to walk somewhere if you get lost.
  
 
You want to know were you are going. It also helps if petrol stations are marked, and you don't need city maps. Try and find a map that you don't have to open out to one large sheet of paper every time you want to use it; you will be using it often. Book-style maps are best.
 
You want to know were you are going. It also helps if petrol stations are marked, and you don't need city maps. Try and find a map that you don't have to open out to one large sheet of paper every time you want to use it; you will be using it often. Book-style maps are best.

Revision as of 17:18, 10 January 2012

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Maps are essential to hitchhiking. Make sure you always have a good map with you, the scale should at least be 1:700.000. In Western Europe and a few other countries it is very important to have a map that shows petrol stations, service areas, toll gates and other important places on the motorways. A map with a scale of 1:250.000 will still allow you to recognize enough details to walk somewhere if you get lost.

You want to know were you are going. It also helps if petrol stations are marked, and you don't need city maps. Try and find a map that you don't have to open out to one large sheet of paper every time you want to use it; you will be using it often. Book-style maps are best.

Paper maps and Atlas

Map Tips: Positive

  • The Shell Euroatlas is good for Europe, however, it's difficult to find.
  • The Falk Länderkarte series (in German, but can be understood by everyone) is brilliant for individual European countries, with a useful, clever and compact fold-out page system. It is easy to find but only inside of Germany and neighbouring countries. The Falk Reiseatlas Europa 1 : 800 000 / 1: 4 500 000 (ISBN 978-3-8279-0434-8) covers the whole Europe for a low price and includes the petrol stations.
  • The maps by Marco Polo are excellent for Europe. The 1:800,000 ratio version is the best (the name of this map changes in different countries). It is printed in Germany but is available across the continent. Pay attention, the 1:2.000.000 version (ISBN 978-3-8297-3704-3) has no petrol/service stations marked!
    There is an italian version of this map edit by Studio F.M.B Bologna and the 1:2.000.000 version has the same problem (ISBN 978-88-7775-232-1).
  • In Scandinavia (especially Finland) - the Esso country maps are great, and free from any Esso petrol station in Finland
  • For the United Kingdom and Ireland AA maps are good but can get a bit too large.
  • In Germany, you can get a booklet for free at the Rasthof restaurants which provide a map of all the country's Rasthof and the information about every one of them.
  • Collins Road Atlas: Europe 200 (1 : 1 000 000) is nice and has most petrol stations, even though it is a bit large (A3).
  • The Dutch ANWB) has quite good European country maps for free (for its members, just ask in the shop some people at the cashpoint if they can take it for you), they also include the motorways to the country from and to the Netherlands.
  • The Berlitz Europe atlas includes petrol stations and has a ratio of 1:800 000, though many important cities are in the crease of the book and are difficult to read (e.g., Paris, Berlin, etc.).
  • France: "Grands Itinéraires" by Michelin. 1:1,000,000, but featuring all the autoroutes, service areas and Péages plus lots of other roads. You should be able to buy it in most service areas for about EUR 5.50 (July 2009)
  • A good map i've found (it has petrol/service stations marked and it's really small and handy! just a little bit bigger than a lonely planet guide) is the 1:1.250.000 Atlante Stradale Europa edited by Istituto Geografico De Agostini (ISBN 88-511-0968-0), it's sold in italian book shops but can be found on amazon as well.

It's recommended you have a map that is at least 1:1,000,000 ratio. 1:750,000 is usually good enough.

Remember that petrol stations often have maps for sale, including very local ones. If you need to find out the geography of the local area, simply walk into the shop, pick up a local map, study it, get the information you need, then put it back and walk out. Many service stations also have large maps on walls or notice boards.

Map Tips: Negative

  • Michelin Individual Country maps are not the best to use, they do not list the service areas and lots of useful information are absent, the scale ratio is often not good enough.


Europe

For Western, Northern and Southern Europe: one specific edition of the Marco Polo car map of Europe is great, it doesn't contain too much useless stuff like indices or city maps, and shows petrol stations on highways! Unfortunately guakasite, wikitalk only found this one in Slovakia.

  • This map could also be found in Germany, Czech Republic and Poland - Tom has a copy of both Czech and Polish editions (both editions exactly the same but with different front cover), and he bought these in 2006. They are still the best hitchhiking maps he's seen - hopefully the more modern editions are still as good. The cost was around 10 euro.

"Philip's compact atlas Europe" shows service stations in some countries, is pretty compact and was available for 7 euro at the New English Book Store in Amsterdam, in June 2008.

Asia

In Taiwan one can navigate by power pole, using the Taiwan Power Company grid. Paper end e-maps incorporating it are available, or one can add it to an existing map.

Online maps

Google Maps in a mobile phone

You can use Hitchwiki Maps, which is designed for Hitchhikers and includes eg. Hitchhiking places.

For many countries in the world, there are very good maps at OpenStreetMap, Google, Yahoo or Bing.

For South America you can use map24.

Mobile phones

On most modern mobile phones, there are mapping applications. For Java enabled phones (almost any phone), you can use MGMaps, which uses maps from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and even OpenStreetMap. It also supports GPS, if you have a receiver built-in or via bluetooth.

The Nokia N810 runs GNU/Linux, its GPS function is not great but it works okay in cars. You can easily get a lot of maps for the proprietary built-in software, at least for Europe, North America and some other parts of the world. Maemo Mapper is free software with loads of options, by default it downloads the maps from OpenStreetMap but you can also change it to use Yahoo or Google Maps.

  • Check High-tech hitchhiking for some more information about using your mobile phone and other devices on the road

trash:Maps