I need a free route planner uk

[devonwoody]

anyone got a good link, google only seems to be giving me rubbish these days?

 

[Dodge]

Whilst driving my laptop I tend to use AA route planner as below

http://www.theaa.com/route-planner/index.jsp

Rog

 

[Paul Chapman]

+1 for AA.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[devonwoody]

Thanks for that. I thought I would have had to have AA membership to get in there..

 

[Lowlife]

I always used the AA one before I got a satnav, got fed up trying to read printouts as I drove along though!

 

[Webby]

AA " triple stars *" from me always have a back up to my satnav

 

[Paul Chapman]

Even though I use a satnav these days, if I'm going somewhere that I've not been to before I always have a look at the AA route planner beforehand so I have an idea of the route, just in case the satnav does something stupid :lol:

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[PMK54]

AA for me all the way. It's worth checking out the Highways Agency website at some point to see any major (planned) roadworks, but the AA does take such obstacles into account.

 

[Harbo]

I do use the AA one occasionally but it does often give a very long list of very detailed directions and a big print out?
I still have Garmin's Mapsource on my PC which is useful for checking routes and finding coords for Waypoints.
Also my SatNavs let you page through the route and show a map view so I generally check to familiarise the route before setting off. They also give Traffic Info and will give alternative routes if route ahead jammed?

I have a Garmin App on my iPhone which allows you to put in waypoints and go the way you actually want to go! Also can access addresses from Google if you want which can be very useful especially for hotels etc.
My cars built in one, often gives a completely different route to my Garmin's one? But the Garmin one is the one I generally follow.

Rod

 

[CHJ]

AA for any serious backup for journeys well away from base in case sat nav. goes belly up.
Then I have some passenger help on route finding for comparison with road atlas.

Gave up on Google and a couple of others when last touring Scotland, Google insisted on giving names of roads and traffic islands as way point markers.

How often does a national road have a name sign on it at your point of entry or a traffic island for that matter.

Turn right at joe blogs roundabout and take doctor fosters road is a fat lot of use in the middle of Inverness with three lanes of traffic all intent on getting home 10 seconds quicker than they did last evening.

 

[Jonzjob]

If you have either a TomTom or a Garmin GPS then TYRE is a really good way to do your route planning. It doesn't work on Macs at the moment, but may do in the future. It lets you plan you route by using Googls maps. Dead easy to plan point to point or point by point so that if you want to do all sorts of detours you just put your waymarks on the map and it plots your route. You then download it to your GPS.

http://www.janboersma.nl/gett/download.php

Nearly forgot to say that it works just about anywhere in the world..

 

[SammyQ]

I've done a fair old bit of holiday mileage (2000 per year maybe, with 600Kg trailer-tent) Belfast to France, through Wales, then via Plymouth, Southhampton, a lot of the South Coast ports down to at least Brest. I've also driven a six-tonner, or a large minibus, all over Britain as part of my Cadet work for 27 years. As far north as Ullapool and as far south as Browndown camp (remember Bad Lads Army?), through the maze of wee excuses for roads in the Highlands, snowdonia and Yorkshire. I've always been spot on with AA.com, even in rural Brittany, or single-track Torridon, but a modern (allegedly up-to-date) sat. nav. has more than once led me astray, until I learned to 'interpret' it with AA.com help. You only have to go to Youtube to see some of the complete bullwarks some ejits have got into slavishly following the disembodied voice beside the tachy....

Sam

 

[whiskywill]

Have you tried the "Get directions" tab on Google maps?

 

[Harbo]

I tried the Tyre download - it will not work on my Garmin Nuvi 1370T.
It has not got a "Route" function and only imports the Waypoints.
Pity as my old StreetPilotIII used to work in that way.

Rod

 

[Jonzjob]

That's a great shame Rod because it is a very good and very easy programme to use especially if you are touring an area on holiday.

If we are going out somewhere around us and I want a route then I have to fire up our old M'soft laptop to use it, but it works so well it's worth diving back into Microcrap!!

 

[Harbo]

Yes John I did give it a try - it's very similar to the Garmin Mapsource I used to use on my old Garmin StreetPilot III
It still works though the maps are getting a bit out of date now.
I updated it for my Nuvi but was very disappointed to find that you cannot import Routes to it!
The even more annoying thing is that having bought it I then bought a car with Sat Nav built in - the car one is not not great though?

A good thing about the Nuvi is that you can buy city guides and use it in a Pedestrian mode - it proved very useful in Toronto - not so good in NYC because of the skyscrapers!

Having bought an iPhone, I took up a special offer from Garmin for their new App which is really great.
Among the usual stuff, it shows junction photos, cameras, and allows you to dictate routes!

Rod

 

[devonwoody]

thanks all,

My computer has now gone to be rebuilt and I am using an old laptop around 10 years old which is a bit of a drag!

got my routes from that aa planner and then used google earth to print out final destination locations. That works quite well, I used the print screen button, opened it up in Paint shop pro. cropped out what I did not want and then printed.
( I know how to get to London, m5/m4/m25 its those new roads off the m25 routes that were never there when I was a young man and why I needed a planner)

thanks again.