Find your way with mapping programs
Get to your destination quickly and easily with instant directions
By Sharon Oosthoek
From planning a cross-country road trip to printing directions to the new restaurant in town, mapping software and Web sites have made getting from point A to point B easier than ever.
Looking for a store or address in an unfamiliar area becomes a straightforward process when you can check the directions on your computer before leaving home. You also no longer have to wait until you get to the nearest tourist office for a map of the city you're visiting. Print maps at home before you leave and chart the major attractions, hotels, and restaurants in your destination.
Find addresses instantly online
MapQuest, Yahoo! Maps, and Windows Live Local are among the most popular map sites on the Web. You can quickly find the location of an address. Enter a destination's details and within seconds you'll be sent to a color map. Not only can you zoom in and out for closer street information, you can get turn-by-turn directions to print and take with you. Some sites allow you to calculate the number of miles from your starting point to your destination, as well as the time it will take to get there based on the directions.
Those are all the functions that Steven Bernstein recently put to good use when looking for child care for his one-year-old daughter while out of town for a few months on business. "We used a map program to find out how close the day care that we got into was to the apartment we're renting," he says.
Help children locate their home and neighborhood
Ben Minbashian prints maps for his five-year-old daughter to help her orient herself in their neighborhood. He then helps her glue images of familiar landmarks—their house or her school—onto the right spot.
"We also go to Europe a lot and we want to show how far relatives are from us and where the plane goes. We use mapping programs for that," he says. "Or, when the kids ask where Mom or Dad comes from, we print off a map of Holland."
Plan detailed trip or jogging routes with map software
A program like Microsoft Streets & Trips is a practical tool to have installed on your computer. While it isn't free, it provides useful tips such as how much gas you'll use getting to specific locations and allows you to map multiple destinations.
You can also find restaurants, landmarks, hotels, and public transportation stops in North American cities with this software.
Paul Mero uses Streets & Trips to create jogging routes. He likes that he can map routes that don't correspond with roads, such as footpaths through parks and along the edges of rivers.
"As a runner, one of the challenges is figuring out how far you've run and what your time is. Traditionally, people will jump in the car to figure out how far they're running," he says.
"And you don't want to do the same route over and over again. It gets boring. With this software, you can map out a bunch of five km or 10 km runs and pick which one you feel like running that day. You can also print them out and share them with your friends," he says.
Tailor maps to your family's requirements
Maps are useful for far more than family road trips or driving directions. Here are some instances where you can incorporate these handy mapping tools into your everyday life:
| • | Print maps to your child's party to enclose with the invitations. |
| • | Map the carpool route that is used to transport your children and their friends to extracurricular activities like swimming lessons or hockey practice. Print a copy for each parent. |
| • | E-mail directions to your house when sending an electronic invitation. |
| • | Find out how far it is to walk different routes. Plan a "walking route" for each day of the week or to share with your walking group. |
| • | If you are an avid biker in a big city, use a map to find alternative side-street routes to your destination and to avoid the larger, busier streets at rush hour. |
| • | New to a city or area? Use maps to find the major routes to stores, your new job, and recreational facilities. |
Consult additional resources
For all the usefulness of mapping programs, they do have their limitations. Essential driving information that you won't find, such as border crossing wait times, however, is available online. Check out the U.S. Customs & Border Protection site.
Article written by Sharon Oosthoek and adapted from an original piece from Microsoft Home Magazine.
