April Fool's Map

Working on a map support issue, I thought it might be helpful to share the map I created. It's sort of an unusual route -- it goes from Las Vegas, Nevada to Pasadena California (about 230 miles) via the Statue of Liberty in the New York Harbor so it is 6022 miles.

Here is the method for creating this map:

1. Put in the starting and ending locations Las Vegas to start and Pasadena to end

2. You’ve already created the Custom Places you want to use. (This actually referred to the support issue raised by a specific RTA member. For detailed information about how to create Custom PLaces (which are used to create Waypoints for creating routes, please click here,)

3. There is a limit of 8 way points plus the start and finish for each map saved. If you want to use more of your Custom Places you create sub maps of your route.

4. Click on the eight or less waypoints you want in your map from the “My Custom Places” box. This puts the way points on your map.

5. Before you create your route, you can have the program optimize the route –or you can create the route you prefer.

6. Since this is a Custom Mapping Application, I think ordering the waypoints along the route that you want to travel makes the most sense so…
7. Once the way points icons are on the map pane, click “Select Marker”
........a. The program will prompt you to click on a map marker
........b. Click the first one along your intended after your starting point
Once you click on it – it shows up under the heading “My Current Waypoints”

8. Keep adding waypoints until all of the waypoints you want on your map are loaded under the heading “My Current Waypoints”
9. At this point you have the start and end on up to 8 waypoints
10. Click on the button that reads “Find Route from Addresses”
.......a. This creates a blue line route (name and save this route name in the box that opens and add any notes you want.)
.......b. You can see this saved route listed under whatever you named it under “My Routes”

11. You could save your map now or you could add some RTA attractions to this map. These RTA attractions are those places that we have personally visited and found to be uniquely interesting to roadtrippers.
......a. There are several ways to add these RTA attractions – you can search by keywords or categories like dining or historic sites.
......b. But the easiest way is to simply search for all attractions found along your route. You can choose all attractions within 1 mile to 100 miles from your route. For most maps I find the useful distance is 5 miles

12. Let’s say you opted to use the Search Along the Route method and set the distance to be 5 miles from your route, but you only wanted lodging (category) and family (keywords)

13. So, after entering those values you would click “Apply keyword criteria “ followed by “Along your Route”
......a. This will add all attractions that fit those criteria.
......b. But let’s say that there aren’t many such attractions, so you decide to add all of them within 5 miles of your route. Simply uncheck “Apply keyword” and click “Along your Route again”
......c. You are probably going to have too many, so you can delete as many of the RTA attractions as you want from you in-progress map.
...............i. Scroll in in your map and click on the little flags – look at the photos and the description if you want to remove from your map – Scroll to the bottom of the description and click “remove” and it’s gone from your map.

14. You can also remove any of the Custom Places waypoints that you used to create the route if you don’t need them. Sometimes this is helpful on a complicated map.

15. And now you get to NAME AND SAVE YOUR MAP.

16. Once saved you can print, or share your map via social media or in e-mail.

a. Under print, there are many, many options for printing exactly what you want.

17. To revise this map – you simply open the map under you saved it under and make changes and resave it. WITH A DIFFERENT NAME.

Use the scroll bars to look at the finished map below: (you can also use your cursor to scroll in and out on the map to see as much detail as you might want.)




Mark

Thank you for information about this map.