I am planning an extensive car tour through France . . . I have tried all the sites I could think of but have not found a way to put in a list of cities - everyone seems to offer point to point directions - very laborious if you have 30 points!

Any suggestions?

Buy the Atlas Routier de France and hunch over it and figure it out by yourself. Should take less than an hour, and you can highlight your route on it and take it with you.

The on-line sites are good for overall planning/timing - and great for getting detailed city driving maps so you can find your hotels - but to take a road trip without an acutal complete paper map would be madness. (What happens if there's an accident or road work or detours - without a complete detailed map you would be completely lost.)

If you want to start with an on-line site - just do one set of cities at a time - that's enough for basic planning.

<b>http://www.microsoft.com/autoroute</b> allows me to enter as many &quot;waypoints&quot; as I want on my itinerary, specifying which ones are short stops and which are overnights.

It then plots the entire route on a single map, which I extract to my Pocket PC and carry with me. A GPS plug-in keeps my location pinpointed from second to second.

<b>http://www.viamichelin.com/viamichelin/gbr/tpl/psg/produits/htm/pda_cartes_iti.htm</b> software does a similar thing. Their <i>ViaMichelin Navigation</i> talks you through the route (and gets you back on course automatically if you stray).

This is the twenty-first century. Why are you still lugging dead trees around?

I did a car tour through France. We went from CDG to Alsace region, down to Chartreusse (?)Alps region, to Provence Avignon region, to Carcassone, to Dordogne region, to Brittany/Normandy region back to Paris. I used three main things. MSN map site, Frommers Best Loved Driving Tours book, and a map of France (the one we got in France with the car rental was the best). I plotted out are main itinerary. Then used MSN website to map out point to point directions from city to city. Printed them out, both expressway and scenic routes. Also printed out alternative detours from my main routes to little villages if time permitted. I took all this and put it in a flexible binder. Time consuming, <font color="red"> YES! <font color="blue"> But the trip was the most stress free driving tour I've ever taken. And we didn't get lost once using those three references.</font></font>

Ditch my idea and go with Robespierre. Obviously more techno advanced than my trip was.

www.mappy.com has routing with &quot;via&quot; options.

What areas are you planning on visiting?

Addendum: I see that the 2006 edition of Microsoft AutoRoute includes verbal instructions. The GPS Locator version includes the receiver, which will turn your laptop or Pocket PC into a navigation computer.