National Geographic Trip Planner 2002

by Encore

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005JIV8
• Item model number: 705381165057
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 27, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #22,426 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #67 in Software > Education & Reference > Geography
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

While perfect planning won't prevent unexpected mishaps or misadventures, National Geographic Trip Planner 2002 helps you map out the things you can control to make your business trip or vacation run smoothly. From customized maps to Frommer's hotel and restaurant reviews (it even offers portable planning on your PDA), this application will get you out the door and coasting down the freeway in no time.

Trip Planner 2002 comes complete with three installation CDs: a program disc, multimedia disc, and street locator disc. To get started, you'll need to first install the multimedia disc. Once that's done, pop in the program disc and do an install. Afterwards, you'll need to reinsert the multimedia disc--which seems a bit backward to us and led to some initial confusion, although everything is clearly laid out in the user's guide. You can use the street locator disc any time after initial program installation, although you may need to reinsert the multimedia disc--another seemingly superfluous step.

The application allows users to plan a road trip in one of two ways: using the trip wizard or manually. The trip wizard is the fastest and easiest method, as you are asked to choose your origin and your destination from a long list of possible cities, and fill in stops along the way. However, you're not given a list of possible stops in between your origin and destination--you need to figure that out on your own, either using the included map or an exterior resource. You can also choose from a list of visits at your origin, destination, or a city in between. We planned a trip from Seattle to Vancouver, B.C., and were given a huge list of restaurants, historic attractions, scenic parks, and more in each city.

Other notable features in Trip Planner 2002 include the ability to budget your trips by estimating your fuel, food, and lodging expenses. However, these numbers are provided in a very general format, so if you are on a serious budget, you'll probably want to do some number crunching on your own. Another benefit to this program are the travel tips and recommendations from National Geographic writers, which add value in the manner of a travel guidebook. Finally, PDA users will appreciate that they can download information directly onto their Palms, rather than keeping track of printed itineraries and maps.

A few important notes--if you're looking to go anywhere besides the U.S. and Canada, Trip Planner 2002 is not for you. Also, if you simply want driving directions and maps, you can find this information for free on many travel Web sites. However, if you want more in-depth details and recommendations for points of interest along the way, Trip Planner 2002 offers enough extras to make it a worthwhile purchase. --Gisele Toueg

Amazon.com Product Description

Whether it's for planning a weekend away, a family vacation, or a business trip, National Geographic Trip Planner 2002 provides a flexible program that makes such planning easy. This three-CD-ROM set combines National Geographic's travel expertise with easy-to-use trip planning technology. Using features such as searchable street-level maps for major U.S. cities, printable itineraries, and multimedia videos, along with Palm handheld compatibility, travelers can put together a trip in minutes. Travelers can select scenic driving and walking tours, and learn about more than 100,000 points of interest across the U.S. and Canada. They can also access national and state park guides--which offer valuable information on hikes, scenic drives, campgrounds, and accommodations--or they can peruse the interactive park maps. Users can plan lodging and dining with more than 20,000 rated hotels and restaurants from the travel experts at Frommer's.

Travelers can discover destinations along the way with first-person accounts given by National Geographic writers and photographers. For those willing to stray from the beaten path, National Geographic Trip Planner 2002 suggests side trips and tours for unique travel experiences. Multimedia videos let travelers explore regional events and the scenery of some of the greatest locations before they even depart. There are also easy directions and mapping with Palm handheld and MapQuest. Covering more than 1 million miles of roads, National Geographic Trip Planner 2002 helps plot the fastest route or the most scenic drive through an advanced mapping technology designed by MapQuest, publishers of the popular interactive finder that allows travelers to easily find locations or destinations. Travelers can zoom in on detailed city maps, routes, directions, itineraries, and points of interest for the U.S. and Canada. They can then copy and paste this information into documents or the Trip Planner Notebook, download it to a Palm handheld, or print it out.

National Geographic Trip Planner 2002 also offers support for the global positioning system (GPS). Travelers with GPS receivers can avoid the frustrations of getting lost and let the CD-ROM graphically pinpoint their exact locations through the advanced satellite system. National Geographic Trip Planner 2002 includes information from National Geographic's extensive library of travel books and magazines, including National Geographic's Driving Guides to America, National Geographic's Guide to Scenic Highways and Byways, National Geographic's Guide to America's Historic Places, and National Geographic's Road Atlas of the U.S. and Canada.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars National Geographic Trip Planner 2002 - Good but not Great, April 24, 2002

By 

findail - See all my reviews

This review is from: National Geographic Trip Planner 2002 (CD-ROM)

I will keep this simple. The clarity and ease of use of Microsoft's Streets and Trips 2002 has no rival.

National Geographic does bring to bear some of their excellent pics. and info. from the parks in their multimedia disk component of their package, but the list of parks was not nearly as complete as I had hoped, nor were more out of the way spots easy to set as waypoints - or even to locate.

I can do what needs to be done, without frustration, using the Microsoft product in less than a fourth of the time that it takes me to use the NG product.

The NG product is clearly better than anything Rand Mc. ever put out.

If you enjoy planning trips with software just for the sake of it, and want another program to complement the Microsoft offering, this is the one for you.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It works and the price is right., January 26, 2002

By 

Paul Kyriazi "bondlife" (Los Angeles,, CA. United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: National Geographic Trip Planner 2002 (CD-ROM)

To know what this program does read the above amazon editorial review. As for me, I took a chance on this because I do enjoy planning trips and the price of this program is low risk. Of course, much of this information could be gotten off the internet, but it's great to have it all together with a funcion that allows you to make your own notes at places along your trip.

The budget maker is general, but is a quick way to get an accurate estimate on food, gas, lodging, and extras. I'm new to PC programs, but this was easy to learn and start using right away. You'll perhaps want to get more detailed info for hotel room discriptions off the net once you've got your trip planned, but then you can enter that info onto your memos in the program. I like very detailed hotel info with photos, so that's the only reason I didn't give it 5 stars. But I might be asking too much of one program.

I know one thing for sure. It beats flipping through a lot of travel books while standing at the book store or clicking around the net for general information. And getting the trip directions, milage, driving time, and budget estimate with one click is worth it alone for me because I can quickly test out several trip choices. So I'm serious when I say I use it and it does get you into the feeling of "the James Bond lifestyle".

1.0 out of 5 stars Two bad disks -- no support, December 30, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: National Geographic Trip Planner 2002 (CD-ROM)

I purchased 2 copies of this, one for myself and one for a gift. I can't get either one of them to load (get an installation error) and can get no support from the company I bought it from Nor from National Geographic. I would not recommend purchasing this product.