| Suggestions to help with a trouble free long distance drive
Posted: 6/11/2009 1:52:07 PM | Next month I will be driving up to the north of Scotland for a short holiday. I'll be meeting up with a mate at Ullapool, then spending some time on the Isle of Lewis. I'm really looking forward to it, especially seeing the standing stones at Callanish. BUT I'm not looking forward to the drive up there, I don't have a Sat Nav and I've never been that far north before. I've looked at a route on an online routefinder and have printed out a copy, but I can't imagine trying to read the print out while driving, I envisage lots of stop-starts to get my bearings! I printed a routefinder for when I stayed in Dumfries last year, after three trips around the town centre I admitted defeat and asked for directions in the local police station!
Does anyone have any suggestions that may help? I don't fancy being lost and alone in the highlands! | |
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| Suggestions to help with a trouble free long distance drive
Posted: 6/11/2009 1:56:46 PM | Pick up a hitch hiker and get them to navigate 
Or write the step by step instructions on a block of post it notes stick that to the dash board, rip each one off and read as you need it (you might need to practice that one, but it sounds a plan in my head )
Good Luck  | |
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| Suggestions to help with a trouble free long distance drive
Posted: 6/11/2009 1:57:34 PM | You will be fine.
If you ask directions the Scots wont understand you though.
I suggest you watch some repeats of Russ Abbott to brush up.
If you are that worried satnav is now almost cheaper than buying a map. Buy one - use it and return it to the shop when you get back. | |
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| Suggestions to help with a trouble free long distance drive
Posted: 6/11/2009 1:58:02 PM | | Why don't you buy yourself a GPS as soon as you arrive in Scotland (?) for like 70 bucks, not a big deal? Otherwise you got two options at least: make stops to read the directions from the piece of paper or voice-record them on a CD as tracks and change them one by one. | |
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| Suggestions to help with a trouble free long distance drive
Posted: 6/11/2009 2:03:07 PM | If you are that worried satnav is now almost cheaper than buying a map. Buy one - use it and return it to the shop when you get back.
OOh, that's a bit cheeky! I'm not sure that I could do that! Lmao at the Russ Abbott hint.
The post it notes might work.
I can't afford a Sat Nav, I'm a single mum on a low income, it's taken me ages to save for the trip. The instructions on a CD could be the way to go, I have some time to try to make my own CD.
VV Read maps? Are you kidding!? I'm driving from Cumbria
VVV Ok folks, I've been outed as a technophobe with no sense of direction who can't read maps! I'm headed up there at the end of July, if I'm not back posting on the forum by mid August will someone call out the search team!!!??? | |
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| Suggestions to help with a trouble free long distance drive
Posted: 6/11/2009 2:14:29 PM | Ye mean ye can't read maps?...Ye can't read road signs?
Gee wizz...
Where are ye driving from?
Whenever I drive back home, I drive overnite, up the M1/A1...
On the A1, Ye can pull over and have quick snooze if yer tired, and there is virtually NO traffic...Some parts are 70mph..some 50mph, so yer kept "busy"... | |
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| Suggestions to help with a trouble free long distance drive
Posted: 6/11/2009 2:23:00 PM |
You will be fine.
If you ask directions the Scots wont understand you though.
She's not an alien from outer space. I have a friend from Essex and even we understand each other innit.
When the people have orange hair and pale blue skin,
We aren't aliens from outer space either
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| Suggestions to help with a trouble free long distance drive
Posted: 6/11/2009 2:26:02 PM |
When the people have orange hair and pale blue skin,
She's trying to get to Scotland not Camden Market 
Go to your local camping shop and buy a compass, I think Scotland is north of Cumbria, but I am blonde and was crap at geography at school  | |
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| Suggestions to help with a trouble free long distance drive
Posted: 6/11/2009 2:41:36 PM | Similar to Cleverkitten and the post-its, I have previously taken a route planner then written the highlights in marker pen in large print on sheets of paper...
straight>
straight>
left A453>
worked for me to abbreviate junctions, etc & was easy to glance at whilst moving...
hth
Mx | |
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| Suggestions to help with a trouble free long distance drive
Posted: 6/11/2009 2:44:23 PM | As CK and Morticia have said... print off a route finder and then right it down in shorthand using arrows and J8 or whatever for the junctions. Its a pretty straightforward journey until you run out of motorway
... I'm like you if its any consolation, useless at map reading and have a terrible sense of direction. | |
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| Suggestions to help with a trouble free long distance drive
Posted: 6/11/2009 2:55:16 PM | By Jupiter's swollen left testicle, why would you want to travel to Caledonia? They paint their posteriors blue, eat their young, and play strange music. Didn't we build a wall to keep them out?
Ermine Street will take you as far as the wall. After that, you're on your own. | |
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| Suggestions to help with a trouble free long distance drive
Posted: 6/11/2009 2:58:54 PM | | Monkee I can assure you I am! I did post on another thread about managing to get lost following another car and ending up in a car park about 25 miles away from where I was meant to be ... in Glasgow ... the shame | |
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| Suggestions to help with a trouble free long distance drive
Posted: 6/11/2009 3:40:07 PM |
You might not end up where you want to be, but you will find yourself where you are meant to be.
Hopefully not Motherwell, it's a hard one, which is the most scenic, Motherwell, Ullapool.
Let me think that one over. | |
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| Suggestions to help with a trouble free long distance drive
Posted: 6/11/2009 3:49:19 PM | you could convert the steering wheel into a playstation controller and borrow a 12 year old (wearing a 20 year old mask), they'll be good for at least 12 hours solid....
i drove to france recently...750 miles each way
2-3 hour stints between service stops and coffee, and munchies for the journey
lots of music (ipod with fm transmitter will do it)
we had sat nav, which actually took us 4 hours into luxombourg because someone had told it to avoid toll roads. laffed.
but before i had that, i used to write down the Letters/numbers of roads, together with the junction i had to use on each one...stick to motorways even if they are slighlty longer, because they are just easier...
eg
M3
J3, L, M25
J14, L, M1
J30, R, A115
(I've made most of those up)
woohoo. good luck. | |
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| Suggestions to help with a trouble free long distance drive
Posted: 6/11/2009 3:54:05 PM | this is what I do if I'm going anywhere new .
( I don't want a satnav because I truly believe they rob you of your observational skills. sooo.. )
I google map the directions.
At any point of the route where theres a big change of direction I zoom in on the satellite view of it. I'll run up and down the route for ages noting down key points, which I make a sort of mindmap set of instructions.
By the time it comes to the actual journey, you've almost driven it in your mind cos you've seen it on your screen... try it. In fact I'll try it for you .
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| Suggestions to help with a trouble free long distance drive
Posted: 6/12/2009 2:51:11 AM | Being up in Cumbria you're already half way there
Twat Nav is handy but not essential, just get yourself a decent Road Atlas of the UK for a tenner.
As for directions they can be summarised rather than wrting down every turn (which is what I do for the bike and then pop in my tank bag)
eg
M6/A74(m)/M74 --> Glasgow/ Edinburgh
M74 J4 --> M73/A80/M80/M9 --> Glasgow/Stirling
A9 --> Perth
3 Roundabouts then
A385 -- Ullapool | |
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| Suggestions to help with a trouble free long distance drive
Posted: 6/12/2009 3:18:17 AM | Ginga hair and blue skin...Gee, your not going to Norway!
I still can't beleive ye cannae read a map...
Look, just stop every now and again and listen to the locals, if it get's more English, your getting there... | |
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