Idea Bar: Printable Micro-Region Maps

I hate unfolding maps.  That's where this Idea Bar post starts, because unfolding maps and trying to pinpoint your location is near impossible on those huge maps available from AAA or many others.  Google Maps and Mapquest are ideal solutions for turn by turn driving directions from one place to another, but they fall far short when it comes to exploring an area on foot or driving without a definite destination.  Throughout my travels in California last week, I found myself wishing for an easier online mapping solution that would allow me to get a single sheet printable map of a particular area.  The type of map that you usually find in tourism brochures, car rental offices or from a hotel concierge. One that fits on a standard sized sheet of paper, is easy to fold, and has information about the location of landmarks, hotels and restaurants noted.  One that is organized based on a region rather than a broad city or state. 

What if there were a site where you could download annotated micro-region maps like this of areas like Napa Valley, Old Town San Diego, or Santa Monica Beach?  What about for less common locales like Redondo Beach or La Jolla?  The ideal solution would be a mapping tool like Google Maps where a user could select a print area of a map (like you do in an excel document) and send it to the printer in a single page format that doesn't result in a hazy JPEG image where street names are barely legible, but a high quality printout where even smaller streets are visible. This micro region map would not only be legible, but annotated with store names, hotels, and tourist attractions.  On a quick web search, I was only able to find an expensive software solution targeted at the real estate industry called Flashmaps which offered some of this functionality, but nothing targeted for consumers or general online use.  Maybe we need Apple to launch iMaps and charge $1.99 per custom created map.  Of course, then they would probably only work for a single printout if you signed up for an iTunes account and only used printers approved by Apple ...

About the Idea Bar:
Working in a creative team, the life of our business is new ideas.  We come up with them every day for clients, but sometimes there are ideas that just don't fit a client.  They are too big, too different, or just not quite right. To view all "Idea Bar" posts on this blog, click here.

Comments

[Ed Kohler]

The closest thing I can think of to what you describe is Google Maps' new application for the Treo. It has the functionality of Google Maps, so you can quickly zoom in on an area based on city or address and them zoom or pan as you desire from there. At this time, I think it's only available for Palm Treos. I have a 700p with EVDO Internet access, so it works very well. It's streaming the maps, so I doubt it would work well on 650 models and below.

[tmn]

you have hit the nail on the head - and perfectly described our company, The Map Network. we make custom interactive online maps. check out our website here: www.mapnetwork.com. and i will shoot you an email with more information

[La Jolla Homes]

The concept of printing micro-region maps is a great idea providing the one page print-out is "clear". One of the biggest problems with a small area map is that it does not contain enough permeter information and the print is not clear. If there could be a frame in frame that would be good so you have a larger area map in one corner of the page on top of the micro-region map.