Software Review of:
AAA Map & Go 
5.0 

Map & Go features

• One million miles of routable roadways in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.
• Global Positioning System (GPS) Voice Navigation (requires laptop).
• Weather, events and road construction through the Internet.
• Phone Search USA 4.5 connectivity.
• Multimedia slide show to preview 1300 points of interest.
• Kid’s Travel Activities that can be printed out for the trip.
• Easy to use welcome screen with interactive tutorials.
• Upload text-based route directions to Palm Computing and Windows CE organizers.
• TripPix and DeLorme slide show allows vacation pictures to be included and e-mailed to friends and family.
• Printable customized travel plans showing stops and AAA approved points of interest.

GPS connection:
DeLorme Earthmate; DeLorme GPS Tripmate; Garmin 30, 40; GPS II; GPS II plus GPS III or GPS 12xl; rockwell; trimble scoutmaster or a fully compatible NMEA receiver. 

Palm computing connection:
DeLorme’s palm computing adapter cable. Palm o/s version 2.0 or higher, PalmPilot personal; PalmPilot Professional; Palm III; PalmPilot 1000 or 5000 with PalmPilot 1 MB professional upgrade. 

While technical support is provided free, the phone call isn’t. You can call, fax, e-mail, or visit the web site for help. Map & Go is sold at computer and other specialty stores for an estimated street price of $29. You can also purchase Map & Go directly from delorme at 1-800-452-5931 or through their web site. 

Map & Go was so easy to load that I thought something was wrong. The usual setup screens popped up and took you through the entire setup in around 15 minutes, using the default settings. Once loaded, you are taken to the welcome screen, default setting, which looks like you are viewing the screen through a car windshield. This welcome screen may be turned on or off at your discretion. The welcome screen lists everything you need to navigate through the program. You can also use the map and trip toolbars to use the program. Once you turn the welcome screen off, you start with the usa map. While you can jump right in and try to play with planning a trip, I recommend using the tutorials. 

I jumped in and tried planning a long trip that I am familiar with. and made a mess of it. Then I tried the tutorials and everything worked out just fine. You can plan a trip using 4 route types: quickest, shortest, preferred, and scenic, quickest is the default method. To plan a simple trip just type in the starting point and stopping point and click the go hotkey and the route is displayed. Once the route is determined, you can plan intermediate stops and possible points of interest along the way. (there are around 66 thousand points of interest listed) this takes some pre-planning on your part as the more you add to the trip, the more complicated the whole process becomes. Once everything is in place, you can zoom in and follow your route and even see street level detail on selected urban areas. Those areas are identified with a rectangle around the urban area. Magnification starts at mag 4, which is the default, and goes to mag 16 (Street level detail). 

You can do searches by several methods. They include specific street address, within a defined urban area, placename: i.e. San Antonio International Airport, zip code, area code & exchange, streetname, and even by latitude/longitude. There are 12 placename’s within San Antonio, however the Alamo is not one of them. Placename and address searches can be accomplished using a hotkey. All the other searches must be done using the toolbar. There is a user profile, which you can edit, that will give you control as to how much "clutter" is displayed and at what mag level. There are 9 types of lodging ranging from bed & breakfast to hotel/motel, 13 types of restaurants ranging from American to Mexican to Chinese to Italian, and 16 types of attractions ranging from entertainment to historical sites to sports & recreation. Under attractions there is even the capability to display religious facilities. Using the toolbar, you can also set route and speed preferences. There are 8 road types, that range from freeway to ferries, with 3 preferences each: favor, normal, and avoid. Each road type can also be set to whatever speed you plan on driving. This, in turn, greatly effects the overall time and distance figures calculated by the program. 

One feature available is the ability to plan around construction. If you have Internet capability, you can access the web and download construction, weather, and special event info that might effect the selected route. If there is heavy construction along a selected route, you can then adjust your route and avoid any delays. If you’re giving directions to someone and there is a particularly difficult section of road that is confusing, you have the capability to draw objects on a map to clarify any possible confusion. You can add text, objects, lines, polygrams, and circles to any map at any mag level. You can also change the size and color of the drawn objects you add to a map. How far is it between this turn and the next road or what’s within a mile of the hotel? Using these same drawn objects, you can measure distance or areas on the map. Distance is measured in feet, miles, nautical miles, meters, and kilometers. While area is measured in square feet, square miles, square meters, square kilometers, acres, and hectares 

If you have a GPS receiver, you may utilize it and Map & Go while traveling. Since I do not have a GPS reviver, this summary is from the tutorial: "AAA Map & Go 5.0 lets you take advantage of GPS through an interface with any fully compatible NMEA reviver and CD-ROM equipped laptop. You can display a ‘bread crumb trail’ to track your progress as you travel. Connect the receiver to the laptop, turn the receiver on, and, after getting the satellite data, setup the laptop to the appropriate settings and you can track your every move. 

Once everything possible route is figured out, every stop is calculated, and every detail of the trip is planned, what good is the data unless you can get a printed copy of it? When printing you have several options available. The summary option will only print the only map, the type of route ( i.e. quickest), start and finish points, and total time and distance. The directions option will print just the route number, direction of travel, for that road, estimated travel time, and distance. Selecting both will combine the two options. The number of pages will automatically be displayed as you make your option selection. The total number of pages will depend on the mileage per page setting you select. The range is from 50 miles to 1000 miles per page. While it is recommended that you have a 600 dpi color printer, a 300 dpi laser printer will work. 

Summary
All in all, this is an excellent program to have if you do a lot of traveling. And I recommend it highly. It is easy to learn and easy to use. You can even have fun just looking at what attractions are available in planning your next vacation, not just the one your planning now. The information is as current as of the 1999 AAA tourbooks with possibly just a few exceptions. The listed lodgings, restaurants, and attractions available along the way will keep any family busy for the night. The only drawback I see, and maybe its just my personnel impression, AND if you are already a member of AAA, I’d just prefer the TripTik package they provide over any map I printed out. Their maps seem more user-friendly over the printed maps from this program.