Where to buy a really GOOD roadmap of France
 

I will be arriving at CDG early November, pick up a leased car, and then head directly to Loire Valley. I'll be driving for over six weeks, so I really want a quality map, not just depend on GPS. I was hoping to avoid going into central Paris - I would REALLY like not to have to go inside the peripherique, but I will if I must. I was hoping to go A86 all the way around the SE of Paris to the A10. Any suggestions? Or any specific maps that ARE available online. There doesn't seem to be a very large selection available online or at any of the typical outlets (Barnes & Noble, etc.) I don't mind having a large-ish atlas because I'll be using it for such a long time. The trip will be through France and Italy.

Please don't drive a long distance straight after a long flight. I assume you are crossing the Atlantic. You will be a danger to yourself and others, it is the equivalent of driving drunk.
Familiarise yourself with the rules of the road in France, speed limits, road signs. Make sure your car has a Critair sticker.
Amazon has road atlases of France.
There is currently a fuel strike in France and real shortages of petrol and diesel. You need to keep an eye on that as there doesn't seem to be an end in sight at the moment.

We just returned from a three week road trip of Puglia and Sicily. Believe it or not, our google maps app led us correctly the whole way! Because we have Sprint/TMobile, we also had full use of free data (slowish) and unlimited text messages. The GPS rarely failed us (tunnels!). So even though we brought our maps, we did not use them. By the way, we had a Michelin map of Italy and picked up a AAA map which included four countries. We were surprised: the AAA map was more current, listed more towns and roads than the dedicated Michelin map.
Happy navigating!

The service stations along the autoroute always have a good selection of local Michelin or IGN maps.

Our last trip to France, just before the covid outbreak, I had plenty of maps. The rental car had GPS, so I didn't use a map the whole trip, except for walking within a city center. Now I would just use Google maps from my mobile phone. I got used to it driving to new addresses locally at home.

Nothing can beat a paper map for spreading it across the hotel bed to examine all of the possibilities for the next day. Looking at a tiny phone screen is pathetic in comparison.

I think there are map people, then everyone else. Map people find a thrill in just what you describe. You all know who you are.

I forgot that part, which is what we did. I was thinking about only the driving part.

RE: driving immediately after flight: Thanks for your concern. As my handle indicates, I did "World Wide Wine Tours" before retiring. I traveled to France or Italy at least twice per year for about a decade. I am familiar with road signs, traffic laws, etc. I speak both French and Italian. Renault, Citroen, and virtually all vehicles they provide in their lease/buyback programs have the Crit'air stickers. And we are traveling 1st class, so I can assure you we WILL be well rested upon arrival.
And I keep tabs on the fuel situation weekly. I know that neither the price of gas, nor its availability are going to be easy pills to swallow, but as with so many other possible issues, it's part of what one expects when traveling.

Not only is this one of the primary considerations for having good maps, but EN ROUTE decisions can be made MUCH more effectively (in my opinion) than dealing with a 5-inch screen (6-in, 8-in, whatever) and scrolling up/down, zooming in/out. You get the big picture at a glance. But yes, GPS is a fundamental necessity for going directly to a new address.

hetismij2: Thus far I have been unable to find suitable maps on Amazon or any other online marketplace. The scale is too large for them to be effective, plus at least the ones I'm finding are outdated. Hence, this thread.
joan: I have the AAA maps as well. I am just hoping to find something with a better scale so it doesn't look so "BUSY". But they will do in a pinch.

But don't tell the younger generation that doesn't know about paper maps. Let them miss all of the side trips and hidden gems.

Or not going to the address as happens often enough. I regularly had to figure out where GPS had sent guests when I had an Airbnb. And never the same wrong place twice. I'm not a believer.

If you stop in any medium sized (or larger) city, try to stop in a FNAC store, which carries a full selection of all possible maps.

I still use paper maps for planning and then take them with me. I have to see the "big" picture to understand and choose routes that include sightseeing points (which I sometimes hear about after I get there). I love GPS in the car/phone for turn-by-turn directions, arrival time calculation, etc., but make sure your GPS search is for the correct town. There are often towns with the same or a nearly identical name... another reason to confirm routing on a paper map.

For France, I prefer Michelin maps at regional scale and a map for every region I'm driving through. For some areas (Loire Valley may be one of them), you need two maps for complete coverage. A single map that covers the entire country wouldn't be helpful to me.

Like Jean and Kerouac, I use paper maps for planning at home and take them with me, and I also have to see the "big picture". I annotate them and choose routes that include scenic stopovers and circle them.

Jean makes an excellent point about the GPS search, making sure you're searching for the correct town, since there can be towns with the same name (this has happened to us on more than one occasion).

I use the Michelin yellow departmental/local maps for most regions and the green, very detailed zoom maps (for the Landes, Côte Basque, Pyrénées). For our Brittany trip, I needed two, 308 and 309, for complete coverage. For Normandy, I also needed two, the 303 and 302 for the entire region. For the Loire I used 317 and 318.
I purchased them either on Amazon, at a French bookstore or tabac or at a FNAC.

I love printed maps! As Mme Perdu says, you're either a map person or you're not.

I do just as Jean

A few years ago we invested in a ?Michelin map book of France with a spiral binding. Absolutely invaluable and so easy to use. No folding and unfolding of maps, no fiddling around trying to find the right one, and really easy to find the right page. It might weigh a bit heavy in the luggage but worth every penny.

We just returned from a four-week road trip in France. Picked up our car in Lyon and dropped it in Tours. We used this road atlas - the scale is very good, and it can lie flat because of the spiral binding. Easy ordering on Amazon.
We had a GPS in our rental car - this was the first rental we've had in France that the speed limit was NOT shown on the GPS in our rental car. The speed cameras are everywhere, and while there are signs warning that they are in use, often the actual speed limit is not posted for a few km afterwards. We got a speeding ticket for going 74 in a 70kph zone.

We had a Michelin road atlas that we used several years back but it looks like they aren't publishing them anymore. :unsure: