I have written previously about Organic Maps*. It is my first port of call when
planning a trip. When I watch TV, listen to a podcast or read a book my phone
is by my side, and I mark on Organic maps the locations of places I want to
see. If Susan mentions somewhere, that goes on the list too.
Places I want to see - not an exhaustive list
When I need to go somewhere I check the "Places to visit" folder on my phone and check what I might be passing on the way. I then sketch out a route, plotting deviations to interesting places along the way. For instance: Joigny was not too far from the route I was plotting to Hamburg, so my route was tweaked to make it a point of interest and lunch stop. I then split the route into daily sections of not too far.
My planned route to and from Hamburg, colour coded for each day.
So that we don't deviate too far from the plan, I then bookmark overnight stays, lunch stops, and waypoints. These might be picnic areas, motorway junctions, points of interest, or public toilets that get good reviews. These get plotted as lat/long into the madwoman in the dashboard (the GPS in the Cactus) as and when they're needed. As the maps in the car are now 5 years out of date, this is important. We occasionally find ourselves on roads the car doesn't know about, and this could lead to serious gettinglostedness if not planned on an up to date map.
All the other places now added in.
Then it's just a case of following orders (except when I don't) and not making too many "Hey! There's a brown sign, let's follow it" decisions. We usually manage to restrict ourselves to one or two of those a day. The only time this fails is roadworks: we then follow deviation signs until we're either back on our planned track, or the car GPS comes up with a better idea.
No domestic arguments, very few as hoc discussions about what road we should
be taking, and just the right amount of randomness. That's my idea of a
holiday route.
*The first link is why I use it, the second is how.
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