Road Maps

In general, road maps cover the whole of a country and are designed to be portable and easy to handle in the car. There are a multitude of road maps styles, ranging from glove pocket size to A3, in sheet form, paperback, hardback or spiral bound versions. Make sure that the road map you buy contains the detail you need for your purposes - some have good coverage of urban areas while others are more suited for overall route planning. Take a look at some of the more important road map features below.

Feature to Look Out For

• Scale - usually measured in miles per inch (mpi) ranging from around 1.5 - 4 mpi. Pick one that suits you.
• Page joins - look how easy it is to follow a route from one page - does the page information overlap sufficiently? Is the map easy to read where the two pages join together in the centre?
• Make sure that there is a comprehensive index to make searching for place names easy.
• Clear motorway junction marking is a must.
• Many road maps and atlases now contain fixed speed camera locations.
• Mileage charts with journey times can be a handy planning tool.
• Additional larger scale maps for cities and urban approaches can be very useful, as can airport and ferry port maps.
• Some maps may come with additional tourist information to make planning your journey more interesting.