Customer Reviews

South Dakota Atlas & Gazetteer

5 star:		(238)
4 star:		(76)
3 star:		(39)
2 star:		(26)
1 star:		(24)

 

 

The Southern and Central California Atlas and Gazetteer by DeLorme always travels with me on my frequent road and rock-hounding trips in SoCal. These maps are a cross between road maps and topo maps and may or may not be what you need. If you want a standard road atlas, you will probably find the contour lines and dirt road details distracting. For these folks I'd recommend Thomas Bro's California map book or a trip to AAA. For folks who know what 7 1/2 minute quadrangle they'll be exploring, I suggest you visit the USGS map sales room at the Menlo Park office [it's self-serve...I always spend at least 3 or 4 hours pouring over the topos] and find the specific quadrangle you need. I generally use this atlas on trips when I'm going to visit areas I've never been to before. I need more details than the standard road atlas offers, but I usually don't buy the USGS topos for an area unless I intend to go back and spend some time at that location. This is the atlas that guides me when I first visit a new rock-hounding site. My friends and I refer to the atlas as the 'orange map book' since the old editions had an orange cover. I'm on my third copy [but I keep my older trashed copies for all the annotations I've made in them]. As any experienced map user knows, no one set of maps will work for all purposes. I recommend you add this atlas to your map reference library.

I have been a huge fan of DeLorme State Atlas and Gazetteer books for 20+ years. I will never plan a trip without one. I find them absolutely indispensable and have them with me on any car trip, period. I do however have a preference for the older style of mapping used on the earlier editions. I used to own an old Utah Atlas and Gazetteer and much preferred it to the new one. The enhanced topo information and colorations are neat but the actual road mappings have a new style that are annoying to me. It is much harder with longer dashed lines for unimproved roads to determine whether the road intersects another one. Anyone who does backroading in Utah knows that when a road is near another on the map does not mean they intersect. One road could be 1000 feet below another and both will dead-end. It is not fun to plan a trip not being sure whether your road goes through. Although I still like the maps, I feel the need to have another topo source for backroads. I wish DeLorme would update their Atlas and Gazeteers in the old format rather than the 'slick' newer style.

Sure, the Thomas Bros. guide is mandatory for navigating L.A., but once you head out into the forests or desert, be sure to bring the only map book you'll need... The SoCal Atlas & Gazetteer! Historical spots, campgrounds, hiking trails... it's all there

You should receive the sixth edition (2002) of the DeLorme Colorado Atlas & Gazetteer when you order from Amazon, even though Amazon's listing still shows only the fifth edition (2000). The atlas is indispensable if you're planning to travel on the back roads or the major Forest Service or BLM roads of Colorado. Governmental jurisdictions are well-differentiated by color, and the topographic relief is very nice.

The only caveat is that the scale of the maps in this atlas, at 1:160,000, is too large to show great detail. If you're mountain biking or hiking in remote terrain or on minor trails, you should get additional maps, such as smaller-scale governmental maps or those made by Latitude 40.

I live in a rural part of southern Arizona, and for many years I always took a copy of this atlas with me while 4 wheeling around the wonderful mountains and deserts. I always recommended it to anyone who spent any time whatsoever traveling. I also have copies of DeLorme's atlases of every western state.

I wore out several copies, and was looking forward to using the latest, 2008 edition, with the wonderful shaded relief and enhanced graphics.

This is not just a disappointment. It is now a dangerous book.

The level of detail is magnificent; too bad it is just plain wrong. Important dirt roads that cross mountain ranges have vanished. New roads, straight as arrows, seem to plow through rugged wilderness areas that have never, and will never, see a road of any kind. The paved county road that connects my small town with the even smaller town 6 miles away has inexplicably vanished.

If you have an older edition, keep it! Preserve it, coat it with vinyl and keep it safe. Because you cannot trust the present edition.

I went out and bought the newest BenchMark maps version of Arizona, and it appears to be correct, and it will be my new guide to getting around. The other DeLorme atlases I own? I cannot trust them, but I have spent too much to merely throw them away. So maybe I'll use them in conjunction with Benchmark atlases. But I'll never be able to trust them alone.

What a shame!

I called up DeLorme, wondering if perhaps, because I live on the border with Mexico, maybe they were cooperating with Homeland Security to confuse immigrants. But they denied it, and said that the level of detail is consistent with other DeLorme atlases. Which means they are probably all equally worthless.

So, once again, DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK! It is dangerous to rely on a map that has gone through the computer blender.

I have several of these of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. Duplicates of each... one in the house for planning and study, one in the truck. Occasionally I rotate them so they don't wear out too quickly. I gave Delorme top billing in my Desert Emergency Survival Basics book, but you don't need a desert and you don't need an emergency to need a delorme atlas. Any rural area in the United States is probably covered by them.

If you spend a lot of time in the back country these maps are the best alternative, from my point of view. It's true the maps don't have labels on the back country cow trails another reviewer complained of. The fact is, neither do the roads. But it's often helpful when you come to the fork in a dirt two-track and they both wander off a few degrees off North, to be able to crack open the Delorme and discover the one on the left plays out just over that hill over there at a windmill. There's no excuse for needing labels these days. A compass and Delorme will allow you to locate yourself in most instances.

However, even the back woods purist ought to own a GPS. I've been wandering around the back woods longer than most readers of this have been alive. I rarely get lost, but I frequently don't know exactly where I am. Occasionally my old TrailBlazer saved me a lot of walking to get back to the truck. Once it saved my life in a snowstorm, I imagine.

For motor traveling you'll cover too much ground to allow the 7.5 minute maps to help much. You pass from one map to the next too quickly. When you are afoot a couple of them become useful. Meanwhile, I use Delorme as one of the ways to keep track of my wanderings. I recommend them wherever you are. And a GPS, as well.

I have used and enjoyed this Michigan atlas countless times for traveling back roads in pursuit of my many outdoor hobbies, which include birdwatching, fishing, camping, and hunting. Looking for alternate routes to avoid heavy traffic, or just to discover someplace new, it's been invaluable to me. However, it cannot replace a detailed county map, but who has all those? Another possible drawback is the lack of Forest Route numbers in the state's national forests. You will need to buy the appropriate National Forest map if you wish to wander there. Use this atlas together with a Michigan Department of Transportation map (free from the state) and you can go just about anywhere in the Great Lake State.

I have several of these of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. Duplicates of each... one in the house for planning and study, one in the truck. Occasionally I rotate them so they don't wear out too quickly.

If you spend a lot of time in the back country these maps are the best alternative, from my point of view. It's true the maps don't have labels on the back country cow trails another reviewer complained of. The fact is, neither do the roads. But it's often helpful when you come to the fork in a dirt two-track and they both wander off a few degrees off North, to be able to crack open the Delorme and discover the one on the left plays out just over that hill over there at a windmill. There's no excuse for needing labels these days. A compass and Delorme will allow you to locate yourself in most instances.

However, even the back woods purist ought to own a GPS. I've been wandering around the back woods longer than most readers of this have been alive. I rarely get lost, but I frequently don't know exactly where I am. Occasionally my old TrailBlazer saved me a lot of walking to get back to the truck. Once it saved my life in a snowstorm, I imagine.

For motor traveling you'll cover too much ground to allow the 7.5 minute maps to help much. You pass from one map to the next too quickly. When you are afoot a couple of them become useful. Meanwhile, I use Delorme as one of the ways to keep track of my wanderings. I recommend them wherever you are. And a GPS, as well.

The Northern California DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteer is very useful if you're planning to travel on paved back roads or major dirt fire roads. But the scale of the maps, at 1:150,000, is too large to show the detail needed for certain outdoor activities. If you're mountain biking or hiking in remote terrain or on minor trails, you should get additional, smaller-scale maps for navigation and orientation.

There's an idiosyncracy that I hope DeLorme will correct in future printings: the atlas shows contours and elevations in meters. Why it does this I don't know, given that the Nevada and Colorado DeLorme atlases use feet. Because the U.S. remains committed to standard English measures rather than the metric system, presumably most users will want to work in feet and will have altimeters and global positioning devices set to the English system. It's irritating to have to convert to meters when using the atlas.

These comments pertain to the fifth edition, second printing (2000), of the atlas. It's been updated regularly in the past, so my observations may become obsolete.

I used this map when exploring Arizona on two separate occasions. Delorme makes these maps for nearly all states in the US. If you're ever going to explore a state - USE THIS MAP by Delorme. It's well organized, provides information on parks, unique spots like waterfalls, historical sites, etc. You can also find obscure roads not normally seen on tourist maps. I bought the Delorme maps for Colorado, New York, and Virginia as well.