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| Map Your Road Trip With The Web |
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Plugged In October 2001 • Vol.12 Issue 10 Page(s) 90-91 in print issue |
Map Your Road Trip With The Web Online Directions Make You Street Smart | ||
 It seems no one likes to admit when they're lost, but trying to figure out how to get from Point A to Point B and back again may be a little easier thanks to the Web. Now you can pull over on the information superhighway and ask for directions. There are many unique map sites and here are a few we found to be especially helpful.  How Do You Like Your Directions? First, you should probably ask yourself how well you understand and interpret directions. You may be a born navigator who can easily distinguish north from south from east from west, or you may be more comfortable seeing the words "left" and "right." Perhaps you read directions better, but your husband needs to see to actually see the directions plotted on a map. You get the idea. What's nice about these Web sites is that they cover just about everybody's preference. You can view maps, turn-by-turn directions, and reverse directions, and you can print them out or e-mail them. If you need local landmarks to help find your way, most of these Web sites also show nearby restaurants, businesses, lodging, and gas stations. Some sites even have local weather and traffic reports. In The Driver's Seat Most major search engines, such as Yahoo!, Lycos, and Excite, have a directions link. We found Lycos and Excite to be a little easier to use than Yahoo!, but it depends on your method of asking for and interpreting directions. We asked each site to show us our building at 131 West Grand Drive in Lincoln, Neb., on a map and give directions from our building to the Lincoln Municipal Airport. Excite (http://maps.excite.com) and Lycos (http://maps.lycos.com) found both of our requests. Excite and Lycos use the same map from MapBlast!, and Yahoo! Maps (http://maps.yahoo.com) uses MapQuest, which we'll discuss later. Excite and Lycos said our trip to the airport would take about eight minutes and cover 3.85 miles. They gave detailed instructions using phrases, such as "go southwest 500 feet" and "Turn left . . . and go south for .08 miles." Yahoo! Maps says it takes five minutes to go 3 miles to the airport. MapQuest's directions weren't as detailed as Lycos' and Excite's, but Yahoo! Maps gave us a less circuitous route. It used the highway, resulting in a shorter drive, and the other two used side streets to get to the airport. Yahoo! Maps also uses directional terms (east and west) instead of left and right, so if you can understand directions without a compass, Yahoo! may work better for you.
MapQuest includes links to its World Atlas, Road Trip Planner, Travel Deals, Yellow and White Pages, and City Guide. The site also shows you how to get MapQuest on your wireless phone, PDA (personal digital assistant), or pager. MapBlast! works pretty much the same as MapQuest. You can opt for standard directions, which shows a map of the area with a purple line highlighting the route, or LineDrive directions. The standard directions are the same as those provided by Lycos and Excite, which makes sense because their maps are powered by MapBlast!. The LineDrive directions omit the map and highlighted route; you'll see a line-drawn route with street labels. This might help if you have an idea where the destination is or if a cluttered map confuses you. MapBlast! also has a Yellow Pages feature, and you can access it with wireless services. One interesting feature is GeoSearch. Once you create a map, GeoSearch finds Web sites for restaurants, museums, and other sites of interest within a radius (in miles) that you specify.
Instead of typing in the start and end addresses all at once as we did with the other sites, we had to go through a step-by-step process. Click Enter Address, type the start address, and click Set Start Address. You do the same thing for the End Of Route address and any pit stops you want to make with Allow An Intermediate Destination. You can also choose to avoid or use highways. Then the feature displays your addresses one last time before you click Plan Route. And although MapBlast! found the airport by its airport code, Maps On Us found the airport after we clicked the Find Business Or Landmark button. The Maps On Us route was slightly faster than MapBlast!'s route at seven minutes. But we realized that MapBlast!'s results didn't direct us to the actual terminal as the others had; the results guided us to the Lincoln Airport Authority, which is on airport grounds but is a little trek from the terminal. SMARTpages.com (http://www.smartpages.com) is set up like an online phone book, but its results were the same as Maps On Us. It didn't recognize the airport name or code, and when we searched for it under SMARTpages.com's Find A Business option, it also came up with the airport authority. Like Maps On Us, it's better able to map out locations if you have specific addresses. Expedia (http://www.expedia.com) is a discount travel Web site. Its shortest route returned the longest time at 13 minutes for 3.5 miles even though the directions were similar to Lycos' and Excite's directions. Its quickest route was the same as its scenic route, and both took 10 minutes. The only thing we didn't like was that Expedia's map didn't highlight the route as the other sites did. Pushpin icons label the route's start and end points, which is fine if you need only the driving directions and would use the map to refresh your memory. Plan A Road Trip The last site we visited was Free Trip (http://www.freetrip.com), but it doesn't give driving directions for specific addresses as the others do. Free Trip's Web site is most helpful if you're planning a road trip across the state or country; we plotted Lincoln to Chicago as an example. You can search for routes by airports, Amtrak stations, or military facilities. To narrow the search, Free Trip gives you a lot of options, such as whether you want to favor or avoid certain roads or highlight various stops along the way, such as lodging, food, and area attractions. There are seven steps in which to enter information before you can click for the results. Some steps are optional, so if you don't need them, scroll down the page. The results for a road trip to Chicago reported average gas prices, maximum speed limits, and emergency numbers along the route, which is a great feature to plan your travel budget. It said our trip would take a little more than eight hours, which is about right. There You Go Because the maps on the sites we visited don't indicate when they were updated, they won't display construction, traffic lights, or other possible delays so you'll want to allow for extra time. You may also know of or stumble on a shortcut that these sites don't show, so if you're looking for a place in town, you might benefit from a test run. Speed limits change, which could alter the travel time, and, you should always obey traffic laws. Some of these Web sites have disclaimers on driving safely. The map sites we visited do work in a pinch, and they're a lot easier than trying to figure out how to refold a map as you swerve though traffic.  by Catherine Geistkemper |
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