Memory Maps

[Joe]

My first goto app for navigation.
You can download the basic app with a basic Uk map for free (which is actually pretty good) but for a proper navigation system you need to go for the OS 1:50. I use this app everyday to compliment my phones TomTom maps.

[bigpaul]

I use paper maps, my phone dosent do apps(neither do I!).

[Straight Shooter]

I use both , and anyone should be able to read a map ......and three little words app .

[MaryN]

We don't do apps (no smartphones), but I can read a map. OH, who is a flier, seems to know where he is by some mysterious powers. Personally, I think he may have been a pigeon in a past life.

[Joe]

I should have mentioned I would strongly recommend downloading the maps to the phone, yes it's about 2Gb but required in a SHTF situation.

[bigpaul]

what do you do when the phone battery goes flat and there is no more electricity.

[Straight Shooter]

Well let’s state the obvious here ! It makes perfect sense to have good OS maps to hand ! The thread is based on Apps .....like them or not .

[bigpaul]

when the thread title said "memory maps" I thought it was about what one remembered about one location or another. silly me.

[Joe]

I've posted a link.

https://memory-map.com/

[Mortblanc]

My God you people don't get out much do you?

I discovered 60 years ago that the topographical maps of my county, 30 miles square, would cover more wall space than my house had and were very expensive. If you are traveling for any distance the detail top sheets are too much to transport. Even the military just give out the small sections needed to accomplish a specific mission. Come to think of it I am not sure they even hand them out any more, each unit leader has a GPS system that plots everything now.

Road maps barely give enough detail to be of use in a bug out situation where AVOIDING the paved roads may be more important than knowing where your exit is off the M6, and you need to know if that never before noticed gate will allow you to connect to the green lane you need.

There is a world of mapping information out there at the touch of a button, and that button can be on your desk top computer as well as your phone, and it does not need to be a particularly smart phone either.

I use a system called Gaia. It is a world wide mapping system that would allow one to walk out their door and walk their dog around the world without ever setting foot on pavement. Well almost anyway.

You down load the system to your computer and you have the entire world at your fingertips, just like Google Earth, only with more specific details.

Lets say you start with Google Earth, then you layer the military map system on top of it, then you lay all of the information and mapping of your National park system on that. Then you add the normal road map down and follow that with the latest military satellite imaging just done two hours ago. All that stacked on top of each other on the plot. Then you connect it to thousands of people walking about with their phones reporting on the conditions of the walking path down which they are traveling, the green lane they are driving or the single track cow path they are motorbiking.
You can have all of that information or just the bits, called layers, that you want. Then you can print it off as a hard copy, or download the bit you wish to travel onto your phone.

And Paul, you can recharge your phone off the car battery, with a solar charger, or with a charge pack. Welcome to the 21st century. There are back packers and over-landers all over the world video filming their adventures with their cell phones. Then they upload it directly from their phone to a cloud server while they sit in the take out line at McDonalds. Down load the section to your bug out location and your phone battery will probably last the trip if you don't waste the power playing games. I put my phone on the handle bar mount of my bike, plug it into the charge port and ride. if in the car it is plugged into the charge port there. It is is in that wonderful post-apoplectic world you crave find one of those solar powered cameras that dot your land and steal their panel.

This is not a driving direction program like Google Maps. It is a mapping system where you build your own trail, or follow a little known trail, based on your capabilities and needs. You establish "way points" along the path and the system takes you to those points along the trails you choose. It tells you if there is a tree down, if you can get a 4 wheel vehicle through, if there is a creek crossing and how high the water happens to be, and where legal/likely wild camping spots are situated along the way.

As an example, there is a trail network in the U.S. called the Trans-America Trail. (you have a similar system called the Trans-European Trail) It goes from the Atlantic to the Pacific and allows one to drive a 4x4 or ride a motorcycle across the entire U.S. on dirt and gravel roads. That entire network can be down loaded to your phone as one long trail using Gaia.

I have in my own state a trail system called the Kentucky Adventure Tour (KAT for short). It is a 1000 mile web of dirt, gravel and backcountry roads that makes a loop through three states. It is not marked on any road map or top sheet, but is available with the press of a button on your computer, and can be transferred to your phone.

It works with my phone and I am using the give-away model I got for changing my plan 5 years ago, with an expanded sim card added.