Can you have too many maps?

Starting to plan our next adventure... and I ordered some maps today. Is there a thing as having too many maps? What's your favorite map? Personally I love paper. Wondering what others are using? What's your recommendation? Paper? Digital? Brand? Forest Service? Device? Garmin? On road vs backroads exploration?

Spent $250 today on Nat Geo maps, in all about 25. (201, 202, 216, 218, 244, 302, 303, 304, 305, 700, 704, 711, 713, 721, 722, 723, 726, 727, 820, 821, 822, 823, 825, 870, 871). I consider these long term investments that we will keep and use over the next 10-20 years.

Considering adding Benchmark Atlas' too (UT, WY, MT, ID, WA, OR) but the price has its drawbacks at $27/each.

As far as our Adventure....we are planning ~3 weeks out with our roof top tent off-road trailer (9' hitch to bumper running 33" tires). Up from SoCal, through Flaming Gorge into Wind River, Tetons, Yellowstone, then over to Craters of the moon, Sawtooth, then into Portland (couple days with family). Finishing up in Crater Lake and Redwoods (if there is time). Should be amazing and exhausting with a 3 & 6 year old plus 3 large dogs. Estimating 4,000 miles and $1,600 in gas. Stars, campfires, rivers and dirt... not many things better for me or the kids. Planning for July/August 2022.

 

I use Gaia and just print stuff off the website. In the truck I have an old iPad with lots of storage and keep maps cached/downloaded

 

Love my benchmark atlas and map collection. Never fails me.

 

I always have the Gazetteer for each of the Four Corners states in my truck. Have used all of them countless times.

If I’m taking a trip to somewhere new, I always pick up something more detailed, like the NatGeo maps. For popular areas that lots of people visit, there are always multiple options. A lot of times there will be a regional map producer that has products with in depth foot/bike trail maps for a given area. I buy those too, when I visit the outdoors type store in the area I’m visiting. Really can’t have too many maps. My wife disagrees with that, but she’s wrong. The ONE TIME I ever trusted google maps on my phone without checking a real world map, we ended up on a 2.5 hour out-and-back “this road doesn’t actually go all the way over that hill so now we go back to the highway” detour that cost me a $200 lunch in Carmel.

 

Nope. Maps are awesome!

 

We have just one (AZ) and appreciated its detail. We got kanab national forest map at the same time and ended up primarily using the benchmark.

 

I’ll have to look into Gaia, never messed with it. I hate printing stuff as it just ends up being a scrambled mess in the truck, plus it’s never setup that we’ll for effective printing.

 

haha, we’ve had those experiences. Thankfully my wife likes paper maps too. First thing she said when we decided where to go was “where are my maps”

 

My wife and I did something similar back in 1995 or so. Flew to SLC, rented a car and drove down to Arches and Canyonlands, then up through CO to the Dinosaur National Park (name?), then Flaming Gorge, Jackson Hole, Tetons, Yellowstone, Craters of the Moon and then back to SLC for a few days. No camping, just hotels along the way. 2500 miles and a broken rental car windshield. Of course, it was paper maps back then.

 

benchmark , have the whole series an also all state maps from aaa

 

AAA maps are nice because they are free, but that’s as far as it goes. I don’t like them anymore, and only good for roads.

 

Drives my wife nuts when I fold maps all wrong, clip them to a kneeboard and look at them upside-down while heading south. She doesn't do maps and she's not much of a pilot either. Come to think of it, not much of a co-pilot either.

 

My wife and I have done a couple trips up the coast just the two of us. This will be a backwoods camping trip though. Probably won’t stay in the national parks because of bringing our dogs. But we plan to cover a lot of territory. No toilets, no showers, always outdoors. We want to take the kids backpacking, but they are not quite old enough for that.

 

Thermopolis?

 

On x

 

I don’t think so, I have many just for decoration on top of what I take to the bush. I carry laminated paper maps and a compass as a fail-safe and just to keep in practice. I also really like the free Topo Canada app for planning and even field use for flagging locations (ie a productive shoal on a big lake that is tricky to find otherwise). It lets you download decent topo maps for your area, measure distances quickly, and spot your location via gps as well.

 

I love paper maps. Can never have too many. Google/GPS is great for convenience, but nothing beats paper for route planning or calculating a detour.

Once in West-By-God-Virginia, my GPS took me down a fire break, then actually had the voice prompt of “leave road in 100 feet” as it tried to direct me into an actual forest. Lost three hours doubling back - paper would have solved that.

And I almost missed a flight in El Paso once when the glorious GPS tried to dead reckon me off of an elevated freeway and across the actual airport runway. It apparently wasn’t aware that I wasn’t driving Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Paper all the way.