Rand McNally Road Atlas

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x86_64_@reddit

I still have 3 or 4 Hagstrom spiral-bounf maps from the 80s/90s period. They were a must-have for any trip.

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Admirable-Currency89@reddit

I was a cartographer for The Thomas Guide for a little bit :)

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Admirable-Currency89@reddit

Not that I remember. I just remember a whole lot of digitizing.

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Wonderful_Adagio9346@reddit

Was this after the consolation of regional map companies? I lived in DC at the time, which is when ADC began using computers.

If you can, check out the Canadian MapArt designs! Their NYC map was my favorite. (Second: Penguin Mapguide; third: Falk Plan. Cheapest: the MTA bus routes by borough)

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StyleImpossible6405@reddit

I still buy them. Paper doesn’t lose cell service.

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AuntDany01@reddit

I somehow threw up on one during a 2001 roadtrip

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tanhauser_gates_@reddit

I used to do process service in one of my many past jobs. I used to live off the Thomas Street Guides.

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StressBall41@reddit

My mom (copilot) saying we’re 3 inches away and dad (driver) screaming he doesn’t the conversion to mile. Good times!

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leaky_eddie@reddit

Planning a trip out west and went to AAA for Rand McNally USA map. It gives an overview that GPS can’t.

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ONROSREPUS@reddit

I still use DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteer that are state specific. I am pretty old school. I have one for each of the surrounding states.

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Fluid_Anywhere_7015@reddit

That, and Thomas Guides for big cities. The TG was an essential for any large metro area that I had to drive through.

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Wonderful_Adagio9346@reddit

Working at the Lincoln Center B&N in the early 2000s, I sold many copies of the Thomas Brothers LA Street Atlas ($30).

I joked that local drivers should buy a copy as soon as they bought a car in LA.

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dubgeek@reddit

Better yet get the LA/Orange County combo guide for $20 more. Never knew when you'd need to make a foray behind the orange curtain.

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Wonderful_Adagio9346@reddit

Even when B&N tried selling their own road atlas, I still stocked all of the RM variants, even the trucker and large print versions.

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Wonderful_Adagio9346@reddit

My family just picked up the official state DOT map, and kept them in the door pocket on the front passenger side.

Bonus: the back had the simple city maps, plus interesting tourist information.

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Wonderful_Adagio9346@reddit

If you want the ultimate road atlas, buy the Delorme topographical atlas for your state.

If you're really hardcore, try and buy the 7.5 minute maps from the Department of the Interior.

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Super-Travel-407@reddit

We were too cheap. AAA maps all the way.

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Wonderful_Adagio9346@reddit

Travel tip: any map by the national automobile association will be one of the best for whichever country you visit. AAA, ADAC...

AAA were not the prettiest (MapArt for the win), but their travel guides were the best!

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RVAgirl_1974@reddit

My mom and I took a big road trip one summer and got the “TripTiks” from AAA.

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Iron_Chic@reddit

My brother was the only one in my family who could fold them back up though.

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I used the Road Atlas but my go to, especially in a big city like Atlanta, was the Metro Atlanta Street Atlas. When I first got to Atlanta and wanted to learn shortcuts, I used would drive until I got lost and use the Street Atlas to find my way back to a familiar location and then keep doing it some more until I got familiar with the area.

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notguiltybrewing@reddit

It wasn't a road trip without one. I still have a couple. It's also where some of my friends moms worked. No idea if they had anything to do with the atlas.

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chimpyjnuts@reddit

I was cleaning out my office closet last week and finally tossed my box of paper maps and the Rand McNally. I remember my first Rand McNally started to fall apart from use, the one I tossed was fairly pristine.

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silverbulletsam@reddit

I remember Rand McNally being mentioned on the Simpsons 20-30 years ago and thinking it was some kind of joke!!

How many millions of other US only commentary or jokes have I missed over the years!?! D’oh!

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Head-Major9768@reddit

I got each of my 3 kids a Rand McNally for their cars when they learned to drive. Live it, Love it , Learn it!

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greydog2008@reddit

I've got one in my truck and 2 in the house.

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alinroc@reddit

Got one sitting in my truck right now.

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Stillwater-Scorp1381@reddit

Same

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rogerm3xico@reddit

My brother and I were big into rodeo. Growing up we spent a lot of time around horse traders. There was this old guy we knew named Red Allen that drove the killer truck. Basically it's the trailer that shows up to the different traders stables and bought the horses that were crippled or dying to haul off for slaughter ( dogfood mostly) Red would tell us all kinds of wild stories about his adventures on the road. He had an old atlas he'd pull out sometimes and show us all the places he'd been. He had all kinds of cool notes, menus from restaurants and brochures. At his funeral his son asked me if there was anything I wanted from his things and I asked for the old atlas. He gave it to me a couple days later and I held onto that awesome book for about ten years until someone stole my truck and set it on fire. The atlas was behind the seat. It took me years to get those souvenirs and I don't know how they slipped away from me.

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Left-Thinker-5512@reddit

I have a couple of local county map books under the seat in my truck.

Back in the day, you had to pay attention when you were driving!

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queenofcaffeine76@reddit

I lost any love I may have had for printed maps after spending 9 years in a town that was going through a ridiculous amount of growth. Literally from one week to the next, printed maps were no longer accurate. And, the city changed a bunch of street names (think from names like North Street to names like SE Martin Street) and renumbered all the houses on the main boulevards. And, the street I lived on had the same name as a street less than two blocks away.

The ONLY upside was the overtime my husband made, manually correcting printed maps for his boss (he worked in AC service at the time).

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Mscharlita@reddit

I do think everyone should have one in their car on a trip. What if your phone breaks or loses charge and you’re unable to charge it or use GPS for any reason. I always used Thomas Guides or AAA maps or the Atlas driving all over the states before cell phones so feel comfortable having that backup.

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KimBrrr1975@reddit

I loved maps. I still bust out my Atlas of the World that still has East and West Germany in it and look through the maps.
IT was my job to navigate on family vacations and I loved all the little details that maps had. And stopping at rest stops or gas stations to get the full fold-out map for each new state we crossed.
Even today when I hike, I bring paper maps whenever I can just because I love them.

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PahzTakesPhotos@reddit

We still have my husband's 1995 trucker's Rand MacNally. (it's actually on the bookshelf behind me). That thing had every detail, including truck stops, weigh stations, rest areas and so on.

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LonelyMachines@reddit

They still print and update it every year. It's a valuable tool for us.

GPS can often steer you wrong, even the ones that are supposed to be designed for truckers. I've never had bad information from the McNally atlas.

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PahzTakesPhotos@reddit

It definitely came in handy for us while we were travelling. It even rescued one of our kids back in the early, early days of GPS. They had gotten lost on some backwoods farm road in the late night and the GPS kept telling them they were almost to their location. So our daughter called home on her friend's cell phone and we talked through getting them back on the main road. And all I had them do was to tell me which road they were on and if there were any other roads nearby. So some random highway number, some random small town road name, and bam! Saved by Dad's giant, laminated trucker's atlas.

He wasn't an over-the-road trucker for very long after the Army. He ended up having a stroke and we were eventually able to get the VA to take care of him. (he's now a 100% service-connected disabled veteran).

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Cinisajoy2@reddit

They still have them.

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squirtloaf@reddit

I worked for bands on tour from '85-'92. Though not technically a driver, on a lot of tours, me and the other stage techs would take shifts driving the gear trucks.

...so I ended up driving the entirety of the country with nothing but a Road atlas and the occasional local map, finding weird venues in the middle of nowhere and backroads motels and stuff. There was a point where I knew my way around almost every major city (to a certain extent).

I think back and am kind of amazed now, because with GPS, I never learn the route to anywhere, I just follow whatever it tells me.

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AZPeakBagger@reddit

I was a geography major in college and loved maps. The year I graduated was the last year that paper mapmaking was a requirement. Used to have a little toolkit for the class and we had to make our own maps.

Fast forward 30+ years later and my GenX superpower is simply gazing at maps while eating breakfast or lunch on vacation and spending the day driving. My wife is still amazed that we spent just over a week in the Midwest on vacation and I only used GPS to get around about 4-5 times. Mostly to figure out a route through one way streets where a river divided up a downtown area in two cities. All I did was memorize routes in my head and still was able to find my cousin's house way out in the country without the aid of GPS.

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Smoking0311@reddit

Give me your grid coordinates

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Equivalent_Yogurt_58@reddit

Large print laminated Rand McNally was the best.

Used one to get around the country when I drove truck.

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Tough_Arm_2454@reddit

I used one to go from columbus to Chicago.

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EdgeOfThorns76@reddit

I used to go extra fancy on road trips and get the triptiks. Where they would have the different sections of maps and the route highlighted for you and you could just flip through it as you drove.

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CAH1708@reddit

We drove from Baltimore to Seattle using Triptiks in 1996. That was a helluva trip.

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X-Bones_21@reddit

Oh, they were massive. I loved tracing the Interstates and seeing where they would lead after I was old enough to drive.

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GooseberryPotato@reddit

Yup, I was designated navigator in my family growing up. I do miss them every once in awhile.

My funny (to me) story was the time I was on a work trip in Philly and me and my coworkers was going to kill some time before heading to the airport by going to see a historic attraction. GPS failed us in the worst way and we ended up in the shittiest of neighborhoods (neither of us were strangers to bad neighborhoods due to ou jobs at the time so it wasn’t a first time out of the suburb situation). The only thing that saved us was a crappy map I picked up at our hotel front desk that had a couple of major roads and restaurants on it. I still joke that I was saved by a Krusty the Clown map.

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RedQueenWhiteQueen@reddit

Not just Rand McNally. There was a AAA office near our home and out-of-state trip planning usually involved a pilgrimage there, as well. You'd have to think a bit about what towns/cities you wanted more detail for, and ask for those city maps in addition to state maps.
And if you were traveling unexpectedly, of course you could always get local maps at any gas station.

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dugs-special-mission@reddit

Still have one and have thought my kids to use it.

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turnpike37@reddit

Funny you mention this as Rand McNally just released the 2027 atlas this week.

I don't say this intended as a flex, I don't use GPS. I don't need to. Maps, whether printed or digital tell me where I need to get to and I have the skill to not need to be told turn-by-turn where to go.

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7eregrine@reddit

I think you over estimate just how much of a time killer a map was.

I am intimately familiar. My mom kept a different one in every car she owned. We tracked every road trip in them and when she sold the cars, they went with the new owners. (I thought she should have kept them).

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Kalorama_Master@reddit

While preparing for a college road trip I asked my buddies if anyone had a “Randy McNally” bookmap.

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TheRealRollestonian@reddit

Honestly, this would have been a creepy good idea sold at Spenser's which would have been sued to hell.

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TheDude4269@reddit

What's stopping you? They still sell them.

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toprymin@reddit

Yep that was a mandatory life skill my dad made me learn. Now I love geography. Thanks pops!! RIP

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KurtStation68@reddit

I still have a state map, and 4 atlas books of the neighboring states - might be out of date but I still use it for roadtrips and back up.

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thedudeintx82@reddit

I used to use my finger against the scale and try to figure out how far we had left to go on a trip.

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zoomzoom71@reddit

When I joined the Navy and drove to my first duty station, I bought a Rand McNally map book. It was very helpful to me while living in unfamiliar places thru my early 20s.

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XpandingXponentially@reddit

Phish tour remembers

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severinusofnoricum@reddit

I still keep one in our road trip car. I do end up in places with no WiFi so that helps us a lot

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automator3000@reddit

I still rely on my atlas. You would too if you ever found yourself without any cell service and wondering “well, which way now?”

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Ok_Inflation_6992@reddit

I have this talk with my cousin all the time, he is almost 20 years younger than me and relies on GPS to go just about anywhere. I do my best to never use it, he says I am the crazy one.

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Practical-Bar8291@reddit

Loved paper maps because you can follow the blue Highways, see and meet amazing places along the way. Made the whole trip more interactive. Well we gotta go west, let's stop at this little town. Amazing people amazing times. All with the atlas.

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MuttsandHuskies@reddit

My grandson and I went on a road trip a couple of years ago and I bought one of those big rand McNally Atlases, and we navigated the entire trip about 900 miles with the Atlas. No Apple Maps no Google Maps none of that just the Atlas. And I had him determine our route. I just say we’re here. We’re going there. Use a highlighter and get us there it was glorious he loved it.

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