Travel Maps

Without travel maps especially when you travel to foreign lands things could become dicey at times. I know most because most people are familiar with their own countries but once you are travelling to an international destination you just absolutely must take travel maps with you.

One of the most exciting things to do before embarking on a holiday to some exotic location, is to peruse the vast array of travel maps available. In the preparation of planning travel to a foreign country, it is easy to forget that a good map can be just as useful as a guidebook.

Under some circumstances, travel maps may even help to get you out of a dicey situation, and can sometimes lead you to undiscovered, reach places your guidebook did not show you. Maps are also an extremely concentrated source of information, can be inexpensive and very light to carry.

International travelers should recognize the value of travel maps as crucial to advance planning, because often local sources can be both difficult to find and unreliable.

One of the biggest reasons that people do not buy travel maps is because they often do not know how to select the right map and make good use of it. The purpose of travel maps is to provide information about the area covered so that the user can locate any feature shown.

The scale of a map is an indication of how much detail the map contains. Large-scale maps have the most detail while smaller-scale maps contain less detail but usually show a wider area.

The symbols on travel maps are the cartographer’s shorthand, and must be explained. Usually there is a legend, or box showing the meaning of each symbol. Each symbol can be decoded quite easily on the map once you have located the legend.

Some travel maps are more detailed than others, giving every street name and main building, while others show only hotels, restaurant and entertainment sites. Still others are more historically and culturally focused, so may leave out necessities and expand on the points of interest.

The decision about what is shown on any given map is normally determined by the cartographer and publisher, and is often about their own particular style than it is of convention.

For the traveler, most travel maps that they will choose will either be topographical or thematic, or a combination of the two. Topographic maps shown the general ‘lie of the land’, featuring physical features, type of terrain, location of water sources, forests, marshes, roads, railways, and other lines of communication, be they man-made or natural.

Thematic travel maps can be quite different. The most common types a traveler will come across are tourist and trekking maps. Tourist maps tend to simplify a lot of the geographical features and show only main roads, established walks and sites. These can be viewing points, beaches and museums, picnic areas, and main cities.

Trekking maps show the route of a trek overlaid over the landscape, and are simplified to show just the main features for the trekker, such as ridges, canyons, rivers and settlements. These are mainly just guides if well-known routes are established, but if you trying to get off the beaten path, a more detailed map is advisable.

Having decided on the best scale and the kind of features that you would like in a map, you are now ready to compare your criteria with what travel maps are available.

Resources

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