Best maps for around the world
 

Hello All,
new to the forum. I am planning a round the world trip starting in England, But i will take several years to complete this trip. I spend 3 months just touring all of Europe, and eventually end up in Turkey, from there I will either travel to the stans and mongolia, or ship my bike somewhere to india, eventually my Half way point will be spent in Hong Kong, where I will work for a year. and then start Japan, australia, new zealand, Hawaii, alaska to tip of SA.

My question, can anyone recommend a great map for the entire world with great details in roads, for at least all of europe. that is sort of compact. I am also looking for a large fold out map lamenated, so I can draw a route through the countries, with some details ( to get the big picture of what I am doing).
Tried barnes and nobles, and rand mcnally doesnt have stores like they used too. I live in NYC right now.

Thanks in advance,

PS. I do own a garmin zumo with all the maps

cheers,
al

If you can find this kind of all-world atlas, which I doubt, it would be as big as a phone book. i think you're much better off getting country or at least region-specific maps and either chucking them or shipping them home when you're finished. also, many of the maps you'll need you'll be able to find along the road, so why carry them all from day one?

I got one of the widely available wall maps of the world and just cut out the section I needed (UK to China), then rolled it up and kept it in my jacket pocket. This worked amazingly well, if you don't know where you are going then just stop, whip the map out and ask someone by pointing to the country you are in, pointing to ground, then point to the country you are trying to get to and shrugging your shoulders in a questioning manner. This will always get you to the next country, will mean that you see a lot of stuff you may not have found if you had taken a more direct route (is this an advantage?) and generate a lot of amusement for the people you ask. GPS or another 2000 miles of petrol?

the best maps for each country, are, perhaps not surprisingly, almost always available in the country in question.

Go there, then buy local maps

Maps
 

I travel often to other countries and buy most of my maps and atlas's from "Maps 2 Anywhere". I am also planning an ATW trip and have been purchasing maps from them. Good luck.

Take a look at Reise-know-how maps (Landkarten für die ganze Welt vom Reise Know-How Verlag online) I personally only know the Morocco map and find it quite good. They have almost all countries in the world and I personally like having the same brand maps so you can get used to the layout.

regarding

Henk Jan

I hate to disagree but in many of the world's developing nations it is virtually impossible to get maps of their countries.
For example in Ethiopia, I had lent my map to another traveller for a couple of days (he was desperate to study it), well his jacket got stolen with my map in it. We then spent several days in Addis Ababa trying to get another map - with no success- even the Irish embassy were trying to help and did not succeed.
In the end I walked into the UN Africa HQ, spoke very nicely and finally tracked down a Michelin map- just the one mind you in the whole building- on the wall of the head guy's office. Having explained our predicament, he kindly allowed us to get some copies made of the appropriate sections and then returned it to his wall.

So do not rely on getting maps in the countries you go to unless you know in advance they have maps available.
On a very long trip get them sent out via postal system to places you are going to if unable to carry them. Also whilst on the road I have often passed on maps to other travellers who were heading to places I had just passed through.

^Shockingly terrible advice. You will not be able to find good maps readily available in third world countries.

Stanfords in London seems to have an excellent supply of maps and guidebooks. I was able to find everything I think I'll need for Australia-SE Asia-China-Tibet-Mongolia-Russia-Germany.
Charlie

Photograph them with your camera .. That way you have a copy - you can even email them to yourself just in case ..

Note this technically brakes copywrite .. but if you have the original I see little harm. Just don't go spreading the digital copy around!

Frank, you can easily find some shops which will scan them and print to desired size and paper. Covering them both sides with pp will make rain/waterproof. If can't find a place go for an outdoor advertising / Sign shop. They do it (especially if you know someone there).
I do it that way...

[QUOTE=Samy;214183]Frank, you can easily find some shops which will scan them and print /QUOTE]

The idea is to take 'sapers' with you .. on a memory card - saves space, weight. Anbd then if you loose, destroy teh map you can get another one fairly easily .. or even if you cannot get to a print shop you can at lest view it on your camera.

Might do what I did if you haven't already left. Go the the library with your handheld scanner and laptop. Scan the maps, give them a name and save. Make a back up copy on a 4.7gb disk and another to a memory card that will work in whatever GPS you have. This is just in case my Garmin goes tits up and I can't use the blastedly expensive maps for it. Old Woman and I don't intend to do any off roading, and mostly we are just going to wander where the will takes us and getting lost is no problem. The exceptions will be if we need to be somewhere (like a ferry departure) at a particular time. There are places in Africa where we have promised to be within a two week window, but if we don't make it, they won't lose any money by our late arrival.

The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World would be my advice to buy, not for on the road, therfore it is to big, but for planning a trip it is fantastic! The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World New Twelfth edition

Most GPSes will not use scanned maps. They are in a raster format, most GPSes use vector format .. and you won't find an easy way of converting them.

A scanned map (in the right format - jpeg etc) should be viewable on your digital camera .. so why not save a step and just photograph the map with the camera?