Route Planning Software Options

[LocalmotionSC]

I have been searching for an up to date discussion of desktop route planning software (and, for lack of a better term, post route software). I have been unable to find a thread devoted to this so I decided to start one.

Broadly, What mapping software do you use to plan your adventures? Why do you reccomend your solution?

Specifically, I am looking for powerful desktop (or online) software which offers similar functionality to Google Maps or Garmin Basecamp. Features that are important to me are good topo maps, street routing capability, searchable POI database, ability to display routes and tracks and large numbers of waypoints. Interoperability (support for standard map and gps formats) is important to me. As is the software being powerful and full featured (i.e. providing statistics about the route/track and giving options such as avoid highways, tolls, ferries, dirt roads, etc).

What would you reccomend?

 

[LocalmotionSC]

To start things off I'll talk about the three pieces of software I use most often. Google Maps, Garmin Basecamp, and Roadtrippers.com

Google Maps:
Probably the slickest and most polished of the three pieces of software but most "general purpose" and not very full featured.

Pros
- Massive amount of POI's
- Easy to use
- Street Routing
- Terrain View is a decent hybrid topo map solution

Cons
- Not all that powerful
- Few options
- Can only handle 26 waypoints and gets very slow
- Not great topo maps

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Garmin Basecamp

Pros
- Very Powerful
- Street Routing
- 24k (7.5 minute) Topo Maps
- Customizable
- Lots of trip statistics
- Tracks and Routes are easily importable/exportable
- Unlimited(?) waypoints

Cons
- Looks a little dated
- POI database is decent but doesn't compare to google
- Stock map sucks

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Roadtrippers.com

Pros
- Geared towards roadtrips
- Ability to search waypoints within a certain radius of route
- 100k+ POI database (not as many as google i'm sure, not sure how it compares to basecamp)
- POI have descriptions and community comments/reviews.
- Collaborative (routes can be edited by multiple people, copied and altered, shared, and commented on)
- Ability to use moer waypoints than google

Cons
- Not geared towards overlanding or offroad travel.
- No topo view as far as I can tell
- Not as powerful as basecamp

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Conclusions:
None of the three are the end all and be all of mapping software, yet each has its place. Roadtrippers is good for POI discovery once a route is established and the collaborative aspect is cool. Google is intuitive probably has the best driving directions and largest poi database but falls short in terms of features and ability to add more than 26 waypoints. Basecamp is the most powerful and probably my first choice (with the right maps) but is lacking in the amount of waypoints, addresses, etc that are built into the software.

 

[kylekai]

Road Trip Planner

Have you looked at Road Trip Planner at the Mac App Store? It won't do all you want, but it may be close enough. There's a free version you can try called Road Trip Planner LITE.

 

[LocalmotionSC]

I gave it a brief look (I don't own a mac). It looks like decent software from my brief once over. Does it have support for Topo maps or is it geared more for on road adventure?

 

[kylekai]

It's geared more for road trips and adventures. Since it uses Apple Maps it can only show what Apple maps can show.

 

[kojackJKU]

I use bing maps for genera planning for street trips. The timing is dead on barring no hold ups on the road etc. I usually add 30 mins on longer trips for pee breaks, food stops, photo ops etc. For off road trip, good ole google earth. I sit down, look at the general location I will be travelling, then break it down into sections. Go in for a closer look, see road branches , obstacles that may be a hinderance etc. Then, I take my tablet, and enter the trip info into that. I have a garmin Dakota 10 GPS for back up. but the tablet systems now are pretty accurate. more so than Garmins GPS mapping because they have not updated their software for newfoundland in A LONG time.

 

[spressomon]

Using Trimble Outdoors. Very good route planning features; web based.

 

[JHa6av8r]

I guess you can get fancier stuff but why. I use Trimbles Outdoors for planning and use when out. I navigate with an iPad 2 and a Garmin GLO GPS. The combination hasn't let me down. It relatively simple and easy to use on you PC or iPad.