Better to Buy a Map Than.... 

World Maps 

Maps & Geography: Online Maps, Games, Information (National Geographic)

Not just an online version of a printed atlas, National Geographic's Map Machine lets you create and save your own customized maps. A few examples of your mapping choices include Degree of Ecosystem Threats, Annual Precipitation, Recent Earthquakes or Mineral Resources. Of course, political maps (as well as flags, statistics and all the country stuff you need for school reports) are also available. The quality, variety and depth of information (as well as the fun factor) make the Map Machine my pick of the day.

Geography - Merriam-Webster's Atlas

A straightforward interface makes Merriam-Webster's Atlas easy to use. Simply select your country or U.S. state from one of the drop-down menus, and you'll be rewarded with a single page country (or state) profile with map, flag and a few statistics. Links to more Merriam-Webster content (such as dictionary, thesaurus, and Word Game of the Day) are found at the bottom of every page

Infoplease Atlas

Infoplease Atlas is everything you'd want from an atlas, including maps, country profiles, flags and statistics. Enter via the clickable world map, or browse the map index. Best clicks are the nineteen geography quizzes, sixteen interactive crossword puzzles, geography glossary, world time zone maps, and printable outline maps of the United States and the seven continents. What are the "seven seas?" Click on over to Geography FAQ to find out. Be sure to bookmark this site for school reports.

Outline Maps

Woo, who! These sixty-six black-and-white printable outline maps (in Acrobat PDF) are royalty-free for classroom and homework usage. There are maps of every continent, and many counties, but the United States has the best coverage with sixteen maps including state capitals (with and without labels), state postal abbreviations, regions and climate. As if that wasn't enough to make this a five-star site, at the very top of the page there is a small link to GeoNet. Follow it for a fun collection of online geography trivia games.

CIA - The World Factbook

Created for government policymakers and spies, the Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook is an excellent student resource. Everything in it (expect the CIA seal) is in the public domain, so you can copy and distribute the information freely. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, each country profile includes a map and a long page of statistics. Other unique features are the gallery of flags, and the full-color continent maps in both JPG and PDF format. The World Factbook (and its two previous incarnations) has been published since 1943. It's even older than the CIA itself, which was established in 1947.

Great Stuff 

Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel

Amazon Price: $11.97 (as of 05/16/2008)

Garmin nüvi 350 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

fter trying both Garmin's i3 and c340 GPS units, this is the one I'm keeping. Simply wonderful.

It has all the characteristics that I was looking for:

1) VERY compact -- easily able to fit in a breast pocket
2) Text-to-Speech -- announces proper street names, not just "turn left in 500 feet"; radically reduces how much you need to look at the screen to figure out the real instructions; wouldn't own a GPS unit wihtout this
3) Bright Screen -- readable in virtually every situation

AND

Dramatically faster location of the GPS satellites. This turns out to be quite important in day-to-day use. In the other systems, it wasn't unusual that we could be driving for a couple minutes before it located the satellites and could give us directions. With this unit, the satellites are located almost as quickly as the unit fully starts up.

One comment on how we use this: We don't mount it on the dash board or on the window (which is technically illegal here in California). Instead we just lay this on the center console in our van or car. The antenna system is plenty sensitive to work just like this and we've never lost the satellite signals except in tunnels.

We also like all the potential of the traveling features (clock, calculator, etc.), but this is the one to own even if you just use it for the basic GPS features.

Very impressed.

Amazon Price: $235.69 (as of 05/16/2008)

Using Maps and Globes DVD

Amazon Price: $29.95 (as of 05/16/2008)

New Map Companies 

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New Map Companies