Road trip tips: Maps, memories, and more
By Elissa Brown
Ready for a taste of the open road? Try using technology to make your next road trip a voyage to remember. Here are some ideas to get you started.
On This Page
Plan ahead
Wrong turns, unexpected road construction, and inconveniently located gas stations can put your trip on the road to disaster. A good way to limit these avoidable nuisances is to take a little time to plan your trip before hitting the road. Free online sites like MapQuest and Yahoo Maps can help you find your way, but trip-planning software makes it easy to map out the perfect route in advance. One option is Microsoft Streets & Trips, which goes beyond simple driving directions.
Start by customizing your Streets & Trips profile with personal driving preferences, such as your preferred driving speed, desired frequency of rest stops, and your car's fuel tank size and gas mileage. Learn how to set personal driving preferences in Streets & Trips.
Input your personal preferences in Microsoft Streets & Trips to get a customized route.
After you've entered your personal driving preferences, Streets & Trips can give you the optimal travel route based on the choices you've selected. You'll receive a prompt in the Trip Summary pane if the road construction information along your route needs to be updated. The updated information is downloaded from the Microsoft MapPoint Web Service and seamlessly incorporated into your directions. These free road construction updates help prevent unwanted surprises and enable you to choose an alternate route if you prefer to avoid construction altogether.
Free road construction updates help ensure that there are no surprises along the way.
Once the route has been calculated, you can see where you'll be when it's time to eat, stop for gas, or take a bathroom break. Then use the database of more than 1.8 million points of interest (gas stations, hotels, restaurants, ATMs, etc.) to plan your stops.
Find out more on using points of interest in Streets & Trips.
By planning your trip in advance with smart software like Microsoft Streets & Trips, you will know what to expect along the way.
Find your way with GPS
Once purely for military use, the Global Positioning System (GPS) has spawned a rapidly growing consumer industry. From in-car navigation systems to handheld devices, there are a number of products on the market designed to help consumers take advantage of GPS.
A good inexpensive option is to purchase a GPS receiver. When this receiver is used in conjunction with mapping software, your PC or mobile device becomes a fully functional GPS device. If you like using Microsoft Streets & Trips for trip planning, there's also a version that comes with a GPS receiver. Simply plug the hardware into your PC and you can track your location in real time while you drive.
With real-time voice-prompted directions, Streets & Trips with GPS Locator is an easy and inexpensive way to travel with complete confidence.
This GPS receiver turns your PC into a fully functional GPS device.
Learn more about how to use GPS with your Windows Mobile powered device.
Make fun pit stops
What would the great American road trip be without experiencing a bit of classic roadside Americana? From the World's Largest Ball of Twine in Cawker City, Kansas to the 18-foot tall Paul Bunyan statue in Benidji, Minnesota, there are landmarks all over the country just waiting to be discovered.
Before you hit the road, do some research to find fun landmarks and points of interest along the way. If you've calculated your route using Microsoft Streets & Trips, you can easily find nearby points of interest along your route. In addition to restaurants and gas stations, the database includes more than 90,000 landmarks and attractions.
If you've opted to stop at a historic monument or landmark, Microsoft Encarta Premium is a great place to conduct a little research before the visit. You don't need an Internet connection so you can search at rest stops or have a passenger do a search for you while you're on the road.
Find a point of interest using Streets & Trips and then research it with Encarta Premium.
Plus, your kids will have hours of fun exploring the trusted content available in Encarta Premium, including multimedia, photos, and interactive quizzes. You can focus on driving while the kids explore Mars, watch a Discovery Channel video on sharks, or learn about fungus-farming ants from the comfort of the backseat.
Keep the kids entertained with Microsoft Encarta Premium—no Internet connection required! View full-sized image.
Keep in touch
Stories from the road can keep friends and family back home entertained; plus, it's a great way to document your journey. Try setting up a blog to keep an online journal of your travels. With Windows Live Spaces, you can have your own blog up and running at no cost in just a few minutes.
You can upload photos to your blog, so don't forget to pack a digital camera! Before heading out, be sure to load digital photo-editing software on your PC; Microsoft Digital Image Suite is a great choice for bloggers because you can save your images for the Web in just a few simple steps.
To save your images for the Web:
1. | Open your picture with the Digital Image Editor. |
2. | On the File menu, select Save Copy For E-mail or Web. |
3. | In the For E-mail or Web dialog box, select from a variety of picture sizes including Thumbnail, Small, Medium, and Large Web views (you can also choose a custom size). |
4. | Click Save As. |
5. | Name your file. |
6. | Click Save. |
Save your trip photos for the Web so you can share them with friends and family from the road.
Whether you're headed cross-country to the Grand Canyon or across the state line to Grandma's house, road trips are much more than a passage from point A to point B. With a little advanced planning and creativity, your next journey can be a fantastic experience.
