Looking
for Somewhere? The Internet Has a Map
By Rad Dewey
ThirdAge Staff
If you can't get from here to there, don't blame it on the Internet. You can
find all of the maps you need on the Web -- with none of the refolding
problems. Plus, they're free for the looking and downloading.
It's likely that male-female arguments about asking for directions have fallen
substantially since sites like MapQuest
came online. Here you can get maps, turn-by-turn driving directions and entire
trip planners, along with city guides and local traffic reports. Now couples
can argue the merits of MapQuest vs. MapBlast.
Maps.com is a one-stop
resource for maps. In addition to driving directions and a trip planner,
you'll find a travel store that offers a complete selection of U.S. and world
maps.
The site also features a "Learn & Play" section to help
youngsters and the cartographically impaired learn about maps and how to use
them. A particularly interesting feature is the interactive Civil War map set.
Find an extensive collection of maps online through the Perry-Castaņeda
Library Map Collection at the University of Texas at Austin. The Web site
offers 5,000 of the library's 250,000 maps online, free of any usage
restrictions.
The collection also offers special interest maps, including maps of the West
Bank and Gaza areas, and one showing locations of foot-and-mouth disease
outbreaks in Britain.
At National
Geographic, you can find maps showing the world and all of its component
parts in thousands of poses -- political divisions, biodiversity, history and
more. Paging through the site takes you to the National Geographic store,
discussion forums, photographic explorations and current issues of the
magazine.
How about maps for tracking weather patterns? Check out Weather.com
and the National
Weather Service. At both sites, maps form the background for satellite and
radar views of weather movements around the world. Also look for historical
climatic data that will help you know what clothes to pack for your distant
destination.
So much for the earth -- what about the heavens? Sky
Maps features free, downloadable and printable night-sky maps for the
Northern and Southern hemispheres. They're available in color or black and
white and include all the information you need for star and planet watching.
How about a bird's-eye view before you set off on your travels? In this case,
the bird is a satellite view at GlobeXplorer.com.
With a little mouse manipulation, you can get a satellite view of your
neighborhood. A little scary, huh?
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