Review: DeLorme Street Atlas

I have been using Street Atlas for several years, upgraded to 2010 when it came out. I use SA on my laptop in my motorhome and have not had any major problems. I also have Streets & Trips on the same laptop but prefer SA. Since I travel via motorhome, I like the capability to specify specific speeds and fuel comsumptions for a trip. S&T does not allow me to do that. I have not had any problem setting a route. If I want to change the order of via's or stops, it is easy to accomplish using the advanced button in the route mode.

We are looking at a trip up the ALCAN to Alaska next summer and so far, SA seems to be doing a good planning job.

Thanks for sharing, and welcome to Laptop GPS World, Sabresam.

The one thing I would like to see is the capability of transferring my routing from SA to my Garmin Nuvi, similar to what Streets & Trips can do. That way I can have some of my stops in my car when we are away from the motorhome.

The other thing I would like to see SA do is to somehow allow us to select the type of vehicle we are driving; i.e.: auto, motorhome, etc. It would be nice if they could also point out route problems for larger vehicles, such as narrow roads or no propane allowed.

I appreciate Sabresam's remarks and found his comments on Microsoft Streets & Trips very useful. I have DeLorme Street Atlas Plus 2010 and found it, at first, somewhat unwieldy but have very gradually begun to become more familiar with it. I was considering trying S&T but will stay with SA and learn more about the functionality. I totally agree that it would be extremely helpful to have route info for large vehicles as well as exportability to personal GPS devices. Perhaps a motorhome travel or trucker's forum or something like that might be useful for showing the amount of interest in features that are particularly useful to large vehicles?

Just received my copy of Street Atlas 2010 via UPS. Can't wait to get home and try it out.

Thanks again for the contest Marvin, Laptop GPS World and DeLorme!

I travel full time in a 45' motor home. I am never interested in where to eat etc. but I don't mind that being in the data base. I just ignore it. However I have spent more than 1000 hours locating every motor home park in the U.S. that will accommodate a 45' RV with a 50 amp Full hookup and Wifi. The really great campgrounds are designated by a Green Star. I did this with Layers. I also located over 1000 campgrounds that will accommodate a 40' campground with the same requirements as above. Then I located all of the Flying J Diesel stops. Pilot and the others are usually close by. I then located all bridges 13' 6" or lower because the tallest RV is like mine and is 13'4" tall and lastly when I contacted those campgrounds I asked them what roads should be avoided in a 45' RV and put that in the layers. I CONTACTED DELORME TO SEE IF THEY WERE INTERESTED in creating a new program with all the BS removed which I wanted them to call Big Rig Street Atlas. The next thing I wanted them to do is take my information and when you click on a campground it would automatically take you to that campground web site so you can look at the campground and see what it is like. Any how they were not interested so I am going to market this myself. I am also adding layers for Wal Marts because many of us stop in Wal Mart Parking Lots for the night. I always ask for permission and have never been denied and I usually spend money in their store for groceries. The only program that comes close to beating Delorme would be PC Miler but it has no campgrounds. It is strictly for Truckers. You add in your truck weight, height, length and it won't let you navigate on any road or bridge or low clearance that can't handle your truck. Sometimes in a large RV I get in trouble on tight twisting mountain roads. I usually stop and ask. I have many road notes in a layer to prevent this. (Some gotten from the campground and some from my own use)

You've done some marvelous work, Syd . Something similar has been done for Microsoft Streets and Trips 2010, it is called POI Mega File, and it also is for RV-ers, and other travelers.

If you wish to share it with others, feel free to use this site for it. Start a new thread, upload the attachments, and if it requires a certain file type that isn't yet supported by the attachments feature, just let me know, and I will take care of the file type support.

i have had this software for 3 years, updated each year! i was disapointed ! the north east mix-master in desmoines iowa is still old!!!! plus my brothers place is 2-3 miles of from where is actual lives!!!! i can't believe that updates are not up to date!! my brother has lived in that same place for 20 years!! the mix master is 2 years old!!!!

You can find it listed right under United States on the very top of its list. Cheers!! I have same netbook as yours and it cames very handy when I used it and drove from here in Saskatoon SK Canada to New York City last year under the guidance of Street Map 2009.

Thanks for the clarification, Ronald, and welcome to the forum.

My installation did go fine other than that and Street Atlas has some really nice features. Too bad their road information for Canada is so badly out of date. I have 2010 Plus and the road data they are using is from a 2005 database. If you assume that database is one to two years out of date, as they usually are, that means the Canadian road data in 2010 Plus is six or seven years behind.

That's not so bad if you want to go from Saskatoon to Regina or Toronto or New York City. The routing will still take you over the major highways correctly because they probably haven't changed much.

But you could have some difficulties at some of the interchanges that may have changed. And it won't be helpful if you need to find specific exits or addresses that have been built or have changed in the past six years. Even in little old Saskatchewan that's a lot!

I do like the phone directory in 2010 Plus. It's not as good as a SaskTel phone book but it's pretty good for an inexpensive navigation program.

...ken...

I had been using Street Atlas in my motorhome for many years and love the interface, purchasing annual updates along the way. I purchased the 2010 version in December and returned it due to many serious mapping errors.

About 3 years ago I reported several gross errors like a subdivision with no connection to the surrounding roads and the WalMart (and other businesses) on Collier Avenue in Naples being shown on Collier St in Everglades City, about 30 miles away. Last year I reported that the program directed me to go the wrong direction down a very busy divided road in Detroit (Serious problem in a motorhome pulling a toad at night). Even the 2010 version did not have any of those corrections.

This year while on a trip to Florida, it sent me past the Rt. 27 exit on the Florida Turnpike to and entrance-only interchange which required I go about 30 miles out of my way to recover. On that same trip, it did not have a subdivision that was built in 2006 and did not have the 3-year old rerouting of the highway leading to it. When I called Delorme to complain, the guy said that there were thousands of updates each year and wondered what my expected level of perfection was - implying that the errors I reported were within acceptable levels. I was appalled. After some further discussion and disgust, they did issue me a return authorization and refunded my charges.

I'm now using Streets and Trips and EVERY one of the errors in Street Atlas were perfect and up-to-date in MS Streets & Trips. I just wish that Microsoft could have the slick interface of Delorme Street Atlas, or Delorme could have accurate and up-to-date maps.

Syd,

You may have already seen it, but the Trailer Life Directory 2010 CD-ROM, has some of these features. I have an older copy, and this summer when I get my travel trailer back on the road, I plan to compare this 2010 product with Streets & Trips 2010 and Street Atlas 2010. It would sure be nice to have a comprehensive (and as you say, no BS) RV product that you could use to both plan and navigate with. I also want to look at the POI Mega File pack for S&T.