If you are old enough to remember regularly using postal services, as in letters printed on paper, placed in paper envelopes with stamp(s) affixed, then you can appreciate the assumption that paper maps are on their way out just like old fashioned letter-writing and sending. This article on the BBC website catches our attention for a counter-intuitive finding:
Why Paper Road Maps Won’t Die
In an age of Google Maps and GPS, paper maps sales are on the rebound
How did we manage to get from point A to B before GPS and navigation apps — especially when such journeys were long distances?
In sprawling, car-happy America, many motorists used TripTiks. Paper guides bound by plastic spirals, they were personalised trip planners, lovingly compiled by actual human beings who would take into consideration your personal tastes, sense of adventure, even your travel budget. It was, and still is, a service the American Automobile Association (AAA) gave to its members for free.
It was a blow-by-blow map and guide, tailor-made for your road trip. And it also gave scenic drive suggestions, construction warnings, food and lodging locations, and even off-the-beaten-path attractions, from pumpkin patches to kazoo museums.
You can probably guess where this is going: In the age of the internet, Google Maps, Wikitravel, digital mapping technology and GPS navigation, one could argue the TripTik, and other paper guides of its ilk, are dead.
But in fact, the TripTik has never been more popular. And that’s indicative of bigger trends happening across the world that are flying in the face of the digital publishing revolution that’s sapped the life force of paper books, newspapers and magazines for over a decade.
How car-crazed America started craving road maps
The great American road trip is stuff of legend. Having a car and journeying across the over 4,000km-wide country is one of the nation’s cultural touchstones. Ask any millennial-or-older American how his or her family navigated their way from, say, Milwaukee to Orlando, and you’ll likely learn that any road trip began with a stop at the local AAA branch.
There, a TripTik technician would have collected a stack of maps and drew — from memory! — the exact route you’d need to follow in neon highlighter, noting amusement parks, scenic byways, public toilets, restaurants and historic attractions along the way…
Read the whole article here.
