Map books to phone maps, I still flip a paper atlas on road trips
I used to drive from Chicago to St. Louis twice a month with a giant Rand McNally atlas on the passenger seat, folding pages at exits and writing gas station notes in pen. Now my phone just says it in a calm voice and reroutes around a crash near Springfield before I even know it exists. What changed for me was a 2018 trip where my phone died right outside Bloomington and I had zero backup, that was the wake up call. So now I stash a state map in the door pocket, not for navigation mostly, but for the ritual of seeing the whole route at once. The screen shows me a tiny moving dot, but the paper shows me how the Illinois River bends and where the roads cut through farmland. I feel like I understand the trip better when I glance at the big picture, even if I follow the voice. Does anyone else keep a paper map around for the comfort of it, or am I just stuck in the past? Lol.