Is there any good mapping software for home computers yet? On last year's road trip, I took my laptop and a copy of Rand McNally's TripMaker Essentials, a mini-version of their TripMaker software. While I wouldn't recommend the version I was using to anyone-- so buggy, half of the features didn't work at all-- I still managed to get enough use out of it that I'd like to purchase a nice version of something like it. My demands last year were pretty simple, however: it was mostly a highway trip, and I only needed broad route suggestions, drive time estimates and exit numbers. Since TripMaker didn't come with city street maps, my strategy was to use TripMaker to get me from city to city, then get the maps and figure it out on paper once I got there. Turned out to be a rather haphazard strategy, but it was an intentionally haphazard road trip. Being able to quickly scale back, re-route and completely change my cross-country trip while on the road was invaluable and fun, and using paper maps for those tasks would have made for quite a drag.

The reviews of products that I can find are all over the map, so to speak. Rand McNally offers a $20 4-disc StreetFinder and TripMaker Bundle and a $40 5-disc deluxe version with additional software for PDAs (with a free shipping promotion from Amazon at the moment). Microsoft Streets and Trips ($23 after $10 mail-in rebate) fares a little better in the Amazon customer reviews and has a positive Amazon editorial review, but still gets nasty marks from some people. Epinions has a few positive reviews of S&T. National Geographic Trip Planner ($30) sports similar features to the others, has a positive Amazon editorial review, and mixed customer reviews both on Amazon and on Epinions. CNET.com reviewed slightly older versions of both Rand McNally and Microsoft trip planning products and favored Rand McNally TripMaker.

It sounds like the major complaints are with the street maps and address plotting, and not necessarily the trip planners. These are very difficult technological problems to solve, especially with a static (quick-to-expire) data set like a CD-ROM. One review mentions that the Rand McNally StreetFinder actually requires Internet access to do address plotting; maybe that was an older version, or maybe they all do, I can't tell. Online maps and trip planners are, of course, free, but Internet access on the road is still expensive and unavailable to most, and special software can offer nicer map viewing experiences and interfaces. Rand McNally's online road trip planner is excellent for what it is, but is ultimately quite cumbersome (though I'd probably skip CD-ROM software if I had cheap 'net access on the road). On the other hand, I'd pay money just for a version of what I used last year that is fully functional and relatively stable.

Anyone have any road map software experiences to share? Any packages to recommend?