Maps, books, or gps?
 

Hi,

I've never toured before, but my partner and I are planning on doing so next year, with the idea of starting in Las Vegas and ending up somewhere in Canada.

The phone we have munches a lot of battery, so we're not sure if we can charge it while we're using it. Does anyone know of a good setup for charging electronics?

Or should we just purchase books or maps of the area and use them to navigate instead of GPS?

Cheers and thanks!

First of all, go on a short tour ... a practice tour or shakedown tour. Maybe even do 2 or 3 of them. That'll sort out a lot of things for you.

Secondly, you can recharge in campgrounds and at cafes etc. Also, you may not need to have the phone on all the time. And you can get little solar panel rechargers too.


However, I do still carry a paper map. :)

Yes...

I use and have used all three. On my last really long tour I used paper route maps. Currently I will plan using Google Maps, perhaps print a route sheet (shows turns and items of interest). Then use a smart phone as needed. For charging you can plug in when you stop somewhere, buy a dyno-hub, and use an adapter, portable solar panels (probably the least efficient method) or use the backup battery packs that can be recharged by plugging in. Or buy a small battery thrifty GPS like a Garmin or ?? Just as a side note, you can now down load Google map sections to a smart phone and use it without having wireless or cell connectivity. I have been playing with an old smart phone in airplane mode, still using the GPS. When it was used as a phone I could get 24 hours out of the battery on a good day, with it in airplane mode the GPS still works and I get 3+ days out of it.

Aaron:)

Get a dynamo hub to generate your own power
 

Search for Shutter Precision dynamo hub. It will power your lights and you can buy an accessory that will allow you to charge USB plug-in devices. A Shutter Precision hub is about the smallest, lightest and least expensive on the market. About $100. The Sinewave charging adapter (search Sinewave Cycles) is about $120. You will lace this hub to your front wheel, or pay a wheelbuilder to lace it up in place of your current hub. After you get over the financial outlay, you will appreciate the free power and the ability to never worry about keeping your phone charged. Keep PDF copies of maps on your phone. Use a GPS file in the tiny little Garmin Edge 20 for navigation. You can keep the Garmin charged with the dynamo hub, too.

staying on paved roads? AAA paper maps should do.
there aren't that many roads....

if dirt is what you prefer, i likes the delorme gazetteer series...

https://shop.delorme.com/OA_HTML/DEL...&section=10096

I liked going abroad and touring Europe and the British Isles, I now have a nice Collection of Maps..

If I planned better I'd Know more about the History of the places I was traveling thru.. having already read books..







...

Thanks everyone! Will definitely look up those items you mentioned; we're currently compiling a list of things to buy (though just bought the bike!) so still working out the budget. However, I'll make sure to have some prints our or at least some pdfs saved now too. (:

And we'll hopefully be able to do a few test runs before March (when we head out). The bike should be arriving sometime this week or maybe next and we've found a tandem cyclist nearby who's willing to give us some lessons. (:

Cheers!

I have never ridden on a tandem, but I have heard that it will exaggerate your relationship. In other words, if your relationship is great, a tandem can make it better. But if you have disagreements, you will have more on a tandem. Good luck and I hope your relationship gets better with the tandem.

If you have more than one electronic device you might want to charge, there may be times that you only have access to one outlet. I carried a 3 into 1 gizmo so that I could plug several things into one outlet. In the attached photo I am charging four AA batteries, one Li Ion battery for my camera and I have a USB charger plugged in for my tablet.

As Li Ion power banks get more powerful and cheaper, more and more people are starting to rely on them for extra power for between outlets.

My android phone uses very little power in airplane mode and screen off when I am using GPS to record a track. I shut the phone off first to shut off all apps that might be running in the background and start it up and only use the GPS app I want to use at the time.

Paper maps that are large enough so that you can see several days or several weeks of travel are needed for planning your route. And if there are detours, planning your alternate routes. I preferred to look at paper maps when thinking where I might want to stop 3 or 4 or 5 days in advance. Thus, I looked at the paper maps almost every day.

A GPS can be very useful when trying to figure out where to go in small areas where the maps you have lack detail. If you are using a phone, an app that allows downloading maps for off line use later is best. And you should play with the app enough before the trip so you do not have to learn how to use it after you already got lost. There have been several times that I am stopped and looking at a GPS to figure out exactly where to go while standing at an intersection, the paper map did not have the detail I needed.

You don't have to charge paper maps.
Paper maps still work if you drop them.
And you get a paper signal even in the most remote areas.

I prefer paper maps. You can toss them or mail them home when you're done with a section. On certain tours I've printed off all of my maps beforehand and mailed them to points along the way so I was only carrying so many at a time. If you skip a point where you mailed them find a library and print off new ones for your new section. As Jamawani said, they always work, never have to worry about a signal or charge them.

As for electronics; Buy a cheap external portable battery backup. I bought a $30 one off of Overstock.com to recharged my iPhone 6 while on tour. I would get 4 or 5 full charges out of it before it needed to be recharged. You can charge your phone while charging the external battery too. With MapMyRide running in the background and all other applications closed I would get 2 days out of my phone before needing to charge it. This included using it to take photos. Otherwise, you can always charge at campgrounds, cafes etc!

Lols, I love that.

Thanks guys! Will definitely look into getting paper maps then. Will I be able to just get them at local outdoor shops or will Walmart or something big like that do?

AAA has the Best Maps , free with paid Membership ..

Plus, each State D.O.T. publishes Maps , Write them and they will mail you one.

My wife and I agreed that we would be in divorce court if we got a tandem, and we think we have a very good relationship. Anyway, we can't figure out how to make the damn things work:)

http://i783.photobucket.com/albums/y...IMG_2703-1.jpg

We use all three; each tool has its advantages. We have been relying more on our phones recently, but a paper map is nice to have handy. Charging has never been a real issue. As Machka said, the phones don't have to be on all the time, and there are external charging devices that are small and lightweight.

See my comment below. You can also use Google maps and select the bike option and then print off. I would suggest, as someone suggested to me, you check the aerial view of the maps to see what type of roads you'll be riding on.

Talking to locals also has a huge advantage.

Visitor centers will usually have them too. Often close to (or right at) the state lines. Sometimes they're on the freeways. If so jump on to go to the visitor center and then get off at the next exit. This way you can pick them up as needed and throw them away. Tear out the section of the state map you need and toss the rest. Most maps will have larger maps of the bigger cities. Those are handy too.

nice thing about gazetteers, they shows everything.
contour lines, campgrounds, public lands, forest roads....
but they be big, and heavy.
even without the batteries.

We use different systems for road cycle touring and backcountry hiking. Road touring, we never take any paper maps. Instead we put TCX files on our Garmin Edge 800 and navigate with that. Works great. Paper maps are just nasty when road touring. We have no intention of ever stopping to try to figure out where we are or where we should go, especially in the rain. We just ride the bike. Road touring, we have no problem with recharging our Garmin and other equipment.

OTOH what you're doing is more like our backcountry hiking. We use paper maps for that because we're always stopping to look around anyway. We use USGS topo maps and draw our route on them in ink in advance. They come in a great variety of scales. https://store.usgs.gov/
And: https://www.adventurecycling.org/rou...in-bike-route/

We also take our Garmin Edge 800 with TCX files of our hiking route loaded into it, but we leave it turned off. We only turn it on if there's some question about where we should go or where we are, usually the same question. Thus the 12 hour battery life is good for many days. Your budget probably won't allow fancy goodies like an 800. We used just the paper maps for decades.

Offline maps, stored on your smartphone or tablet, just need a GPS signal, no cell coverage needed. I can fire up my osmand app and see a map of my current location in just a few seconds.

I reviewed the open source osmand app in this thread, repeated below. There's other offline map apps available now, but this is the one I've used. For locating places by name, or browsing for local restaurants or stores, google maps is very good, but it needs a data connection.

From Nov 2015:
I have the inexpensive pay version of osmand (it's osmand+). A one-time fee (maybe $6?) to download any number of state or region maps. And I purchased the countour and elevation overlay (maybe $2?) The free version has a limit of 10 state downloads.

If I'm doing driving directions, I normally use google maps if I have a data connection. They have updated traffic and better routing calculations. But osmand is fast to load and uses the previously downloaded map files.

If your phone has a separate data card, configure Osmand to store it's maps there. If you have a lot of states, it adds up to quite a bit of storage. I have 2.5 GB with maybe 10 states loaded.

Here's an example of osmand screen shots, Mount Mitchell, near Asheville NC:

zooming in. The elevations are in meters, not feet. It shows different types of roads in different colors, and bike trails show in dark blue.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-9...2-12-37-07.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Z...2-12-36-43.jpg

Contour lines every 10 meters (33 feet).
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-I...2-12-36-25.jpg


Zoomed way in, with a location marker that can be named and saved. More details appear as you zoom in--the museum building and bathrooms symbol, for instance.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-a...2-12-35-18.jpg

Even on well marked trails, the best system is not relying solely on handwritten directions.

Don't ask how I know. Always have a backup for whatever you choose.

Thanks everyone! Will keep tourist information centers on my list of places to visit for maps to get and throw away. Will all of them have them or just those at the border more so?

And thanks about the app recommendation rm -rf. Checking it out now. (:

In the US, Tourist Information Centres tend to be on borders.

In Canada, they tend to be on the edge of town, sometimes just a little way out of town.

In Australia, they are plentiful ... in the middle of just about every city and every little town you'll come across.

Garmin Etrex series
 

We use the Garmin Etrex 20 gps. Runs on two AA batteries with 18-20 hours. Rechargeable batteries or standard. Worked flawlessly in Portugal, Ireland and Europe. Download the free maps from Garmin openstreetmap. Plan your route on Basecamp and away you go. A bit of a learning curve, but well worth it in my estimation. We also bring along a phone, but rely solely on the gps for travel purposes.

Thanks! That app might be reason enough to get a smartphone. Only for Android?

Most visitor centers will have state maps. If the visitor center is on the state line then it'd be rare for them not to have them. I didn't have any problem finding state maps at visitor centers in cities not on the state line though. Picked up a Wisconsin map at the visitors center in Minneapolis, Minnesota; a few hours away from the state line, for example.