Apres_Londee

I need to buy a road atlas. Any preference for Michelin or AZ or something else? Are they all about the same?

We won't be doing any heavy duty driving- we're just staying in Aberdeenshire for a few nights, flying into and out of Aberdeen and picking up and dropping off the car at the airport. We'll be staying between Stonehaven and Montrose and we'll probably be puttering around there mostly, but we are planning on visiting Glamis and Dunnottar Castle.

Thanks!

Alec

AA roat atlases are usually very good and clear. You can pickup 2010 edition of the whole of UK at 200000:1 from as little as £1.99 from newsagents, larger supermarkets etc. You don't need anything more detailed for general touring, but will need 50000:1 Ordnance Survey Landranger series for hiking.

janisj

Yep - the AA is great (as are lots of others- I think I have 7 or 8 UK road atlases - 5 different publishers)

Don't buy one at home - I bought my last AA in a petrol station for (I think) £2.50 The same one costs $25 at my local chain bookshop in California.

flanneruk

Whichever one offers the best value in the first petrol station you come to. For advance route planning, use Google.

None offer really useful street maps of Edinburgh, Glasgow or Aberdeen (for which you need the local A-Z): all offer adequate strategic maps to navigate through the cities, and virtually 100% coverage of all roads outside the cities.

alanRow

<<< None offer really useful street maps of Edinburgh, Glasgow or Aberdeen (for which you need the local A-Z >>>

And the A-Z will not help you at all if driving in Glasgow or Edinburgh for which buses and walking are a far better form of transport

alihutch

And the A-Z will not help you at all if driving in Glasgow or Edinburgh for which buses and walking are a far better form of transport

A-Z still pretty useful if you are walking or getting the bus, but OP isn't going to the central belt, just the Aberdeen area

Apres_Londee

Thanks everyone. No Edinburgh or Glasgow this trip, sadly. After I posted it occurred to me it might be best to wait and buy it there. I'll keep an eye out for AA. Thanks again.

sheila

AA or RAC, either based on the Ordnance Survey, at the scale which you prefer.

For sure.

stfc

Apropos of A-Z, that company has an interesting history, worth a couple of seconds' look: http://www.a-zmaps.co.uk/?nid=39

tod

By all means get a good road map but we could not have managed driving without our Garmin! When you hit those round-a-bouts you can easily take the wrong exit and have to travel for miles before being able to get back on your original route.
Play it safe - get a Garmin loaded with Europe which will include Scotland and probably Ireland too.

alihutch

Sat Nav isn't always great in Scotland....a decent road map will be fine and much cheaper!

stfc

'Sat Nav isn't always great in Scotland'

GPS works the same over the whole planet. It will only be the quality of the receiver and/or software that reduces performance. Being Scotland has nothing to do with it.

alihutch

I don't mean the reception, I just mean that sometimes the map information isn't that accurate. It's the experience of people I was working with...one cameraman not being able to find a street that was on my paper map and folks getting sent odd ways.
The for the area the OP is going to, maps will be just fine and is what they were asking about.

janisj

"<i>GPS works the same over the whole planet. It will only be the quality of the receiver and/or software that reduces performance. Being Scotland has nothing to do with it.</i>"

Yes, they 'work' all over the planet. But one simply cannot rely on them in rural parts of Scotland (or elsewhere in the UK for that matter).

Some villages have had to put up signs (a red circle/diagonal line across a satellite antenna) warning folks to not follow a sat nav in the area. Cars and lorries have been stuck in farm yards, or in fords, or under low bridges.

A GPS is a great tool -- but having a good road atlas is a necessity

alihutch

My best story was a colleague who was up with a satellite truck on the west coast of Scotland...he needed to go back to Glasgow and the Sat Nav suggested that he carried on the the nearest ferry, took it to the nearby island, drove to the first roundabout, went all the way round it, back to the ferry, back across the water and then headed off to Scotland!

stfc

The last 3 posts all illustrate my point - it's the quality of the onboard equipment that lets you down, not the GPS system itself. Scotland doesn't have a monopoly of poor GPS software.

When I had a proper job a few months ago and relied on GPS as a primary navigation aid, it would tell me how far left or right of track I was to within feet, and the number was usually very small indeed.

Apres_Londee

My sense of direction is so bad, there are days I think I could use a GPS just for walking around in my daily life. But I think we'll be good with a road atlas. We aren't going too far afield and no cities so we should be fine.

alihutch

<The last 3 posts all illustrate my point - it's the quality of the onboard equipment that lets you down, not the GPS system itself. Scotland doesn't have a monopoly of poor GPS software.>

I think we are talking semantics here...

OP have a great trip, and you'll pick up a map very easily and enjoy your puttering.....(or pottering as I'd call it!)