paper maps for Africa, buy now or buy there?
 

I am re-posting this from another spot:
I am travelling by motorbike and space and weight matters...

are good paper maps available when you need them (meaning before you get to the capital) for all countires, or do you experienced african travellers recommend getting decent scale maps (1:1,000,000) for all your route before you leave Europe or the US?

ITM maps? is there a better brand in general?

My experience is local maps can not be bought locally, better to buy everything before hand but thats a lot of paper, or can you find them in good book stores in the major cities in adjoining countries?


I'll get the T4A maps for my GPS but for route planning paper is better.

Thanks!

Hi,

Im just selling my GPS with t4a for 100 Dollars + Shiping (PN me it you want it). I Also used the three Michelin Papermaps 741. 745 und 746 to travel all the way round. They are easy to get on Amazon but not available in Africa.

http://www.adventure-travel-experien...en_transafrika

Tobi

+1 for the Michelin maps, I've used more detailed maps, but they where all prety useless and the 3 Michelins pack very small and have all the detail you need and are 95 % correct about the types of road (asfalt/offroad).
For the GPS I recommend the open street maps (free)
Free worldwide Garmin maps from OpenStreetMap
I found them a lot better than T4A, which has not much detail in West Africa

i would say mitchalin aswell...good maps...but never sore them for sale out in africa ( but was not looking) i got a garmin now aswell...just trying to program it with OSM

Definitely get maps before you go
 

Definitely get maps before you go.

The Michelin maps are great, right mix of size v detail. 2 Michelin maps will cover the length of Africa. You can always tear of the parts that you don't need

Next time I will take 2 different GPS maps as the details is not always great.

Im not sure the route you are taking but I managed to pick up some maps in Nairobi. I couldnt find anything north of Nairobi... except off other travellers.

+1 for Michelin maps. Nothing to buy there, except in South Africa - but then only for southern Africa
+1 for OpenStreetMap, t4a isn't worth the money (unfortunately for the great people who've started the put them together)

Two days to late - i ordered that t4a stuff :thumbdown:

But ok, i will put too the openstreetmaps stuff to the sd card

Map - hard copy
 

Michelin as good as it gets. Try to get a good map per country - this helps a lot for planning the 'not so often seen routes', which bikers usually use. For eg. in Botswana Veronica Roodt made available a mapset sponsered by Shell - which is one of the best maps I ever owned!!!

mapstudio.co.za maybe a start to see the availability of the Southern parts of Africa. I even have electronic ones, which is fine for greater area route planning as well....

Enjoy the ride. :scooter: