Paper maps trying to find their way

COLUMBUS, OHIO -- Used to be, Dad would stuff a half-dozen maps in the glove box before setting out with the family on a road trip to see the waterfalls at Yosemite or the granite faces of Mount Rushmore. Colorful maps bearing the logos of the oil companies that printed them - names like Texaco, Gulf, Esso - once brimmed from displays at filling stations, free for the taking.

But of the more than 35 million Americans expected to travel by car this Fourth of July, a good chunk will probably reach for technology before they're tempted to unfold - and in a tradition that used to bind Americans as tightly as a highway cloverleaf, try to refold - a paper road map.

Websites like MapQuest and Google Maps simplified trip planning. Affordable GPS devices and built-in navigation on smartphones downright transformed it - and transportation agencies around the country are printing fewer maps to cut costs or because of falling demand.

The drop in sales began around 2003, when affordable GPS units became the go-to Christmas present, said Pat Carrier, former owner of a travel bookstore in Cambridge, Mass.

"Suddenly, everyone was buying a Garmin or a TomTom," he said. "That's the year I thought, 'Oh, it's finally happened.'"

STOP THE PRESSES

Transportation departments around the country are in the middle of reprioritizing their spending amid times of falling revenue, and paper maps could be on the chopping block, said Bob Cullen, spokesman for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

"Just based on the current climate, there have been some cuts," he said. "I would expect map printing to be one area that's been targeted."

That's not the case in Nevada, where the state Commission on Tourism printed 828,000 Nevada maps for the 2011-2012 season. Chris Moran, a commission spokeswoman, says the print run hasn't changed in recent times, and the publication still is requested by gas stations, rental car companies, visitor centers and the state's airports.

"I think the interest is still keen, especially in rural Nevada where electronic devices don't always work," Moran adds.

For Southern Nevada specifically, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority offers an interactive map of Las Vegas on its visitlasvegas.com website, and prints day-trip maps that cover the surrounding area each year.

WHERE Magazine also prints a Las Vegas map that's provided in the travel authority's visitor center.

Local bookstores including Barnes & Noble Booksellers and Plaza Books still sell maps, although the owner of Plaza Books, Ann DeVere, says there's not much of a market.

"In the youth market, maps tend to be a little dated," DeVere said.

Plaza Books used to carry the Las Vegas Street Guide, but demand has fallen so much that DeVere decided to stop. Now, the maps she stocks primarily are antiquarian, targeted at hobbyists.

"People looking for maps now usually want them for a collection," she said.

In late June, at the annual exposition of the Road Map Collectors Association in Dublin, Ohio, collector Terry Palmer was selling some of his beloved maps. The 65-year-old Texan wore a T-shirt with intricate route lines of the United States on his chest, back and arms.

"The GPS of course now being so available, a lot of new cars are coming out with built-in GPS. People are utilizing those, and they don't want a road map," he said. "A lot of the younger generation, they're used to having their phone, and they don't need a road map to figure out where to go."

In Georgia, officials print about 1.6 million maps to cover a two-year period - less than half the run a decade ago. In Pennsylvania, where officials say public demand has gone down, about 750,000 maps are being printed - far fewer than 3 million in 2000.

Officials in Oklahoma and Ohio also say map printing is down, and Washington state discontinued them altogether by 2009 because of budget shortfalls.

But in other states, printing is steady because maps remain popular at visitor centers. In Missouri, officials say they're printing about 1.5 million maps for a two- to three-year period, consistent with printing from a decade ago. Officials in Connecticut, Mississippi and Nebraska also say much the same.

It's unclear why some states are affected more than others. Some speculate certain regions affect how people travel there. In Delaware, for example, officials attributed a jump in printing of about 100,000 maps to people visiting beaches and to renewed real-estate interest.

FOLDABLE FREEDOM

There's a universal theme to paper road maps, especially for baby boomers traveling after retirement, said Kevin Nursick, spokesman for Connecticut's transportation department. Paper maps, he said, offer an experience that dead batteries and unreliable service cannot.

"Simpler times are something everyone yearns for. And maybe looking at a map takes you back," he said. "The technology is neat, but on a personal level, there's a sense of nostalgia when you look at the paper map. A lot of people are yearning for simpler times."

At the collectors' association exposition, a carpeted ballroom at an Embassy Suites hotel outside Columbus featured old road maps for sale, and gave collectors a glimpse into an era of romanticized advertising - brightly colored paper maps promising the sunny beaches of Florida, the mountains of Montana and Chicago's famous skyline.

Free roadside maps boomed between the 1920s and 1970s, when oil companies worked with a handful of publishers. As major highways were being built, those maps became synonymous with the possibilities of the open road.

Dick Bloom, a founding member of the group, has been collecting maps since he was 10. The retired airline pilot from Danville, Ky., said there used to be an element of surprise in road trips.

"The paper map was all you had back then," Bloom, 74, said from his merchandise table. "It was the only way to get around. It was a lot more of an adventure back then. Life was much more of an adventure."

NEW ROUTES TO PROFIT

Companies like AAA and Rand McNally have been printing maps for decades and are just as synonymous with trip planning.

Members of AAA, whose services are fully integrated online and include a TripTik mobile app, requested more than 14 million paper guides in 2010, spokeswoman Heather Hunter said. The number of paper maps AAA prints has declined, but she wouldn't go into detail.

Rand McNally is known for its road atlases but also offers an interactive travel website and GPS devices; it declined to say how many maps it prints

Carrier, now a consultant in the mapping and travel publishing industry, said the added services from traditional map companies show the incredible potential in the industry.

"There's no question in the U.S. that traditional road maps are diminished," he said. "But there are other areas of the map industry that are thriving and even growing."

Charlie Regan, who runs the National Geographic map division, said the company has sold more paper map products in the past three years than it has since 1915. He attributed it to customers learning to appreciate good map data. Sales of international maps have remained consistent, and that sales of recreational maps are on the rise, he said.

"It's almost like a golden age in mapping. More people than ever before in history are using maps every day," he said. "For me, that's fantastic, and it's an opportunity."

What most people agree on is that paper road maps will not go away quietly, like pay phones and phone books. Chris Turner, a collector from Jeffersonville, Ind., shook his head at the notion of paper maps becoming obsolete.

"With a GPS or other mapping system that you might use, you feel like you're beholden to the GPS lady. You know? 'Turn left here. Recalculating.' Well, with a map, you can trace your route and you can decide for yourself still where you want to go.

"And if you want to vary from the GPS lady, so be it," he said. "But you're armed with that knowledge from that map to do that."

Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Laura Carroll contributed to this report.