Thomas Guide 2003 California Road Atlas [Spiral-bound]

Thomas Brothers Maps (Corporate Author)

Product Details

• Spiral-bound
• Publisher: Thomas Brothers Maps (March 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0528997904
• ISBN-13: 978-0528997907
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 10 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,171,372 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Map Merger IMPROVES Already Excellent Atlas, June 18, 2003

By 

Bruce Crocker "agnostictrickster" (Whittier, California United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thomas Guide 2003 California Road Atlas (Spiral-bound)

Bad things can happen when a big company takes over a smaller company and that was my fear when Rand McNally bought Thomas Bros. My fears were unfounded and, in fact, it appears that The Thomas Guides have been improved! Anybody who lives in an area that has been mapped by Thomas Bros knows that The Thomas Guides are excellent and indispensable [The Thomas Guides are such a major part of the culture in southern California that when Thomas Bros changed the pagination of the map books in the early 1990's people involved with deliveries, emergency services, and real estate (houses in SoCal are listed by Thomas Guide pages and grids) had their lives dirsrupted as they had to learn the new page numbers]. It is with great relief and excitement that I tell you that the 2003 edition of the California Road Atlas is much better than previous editions.

The good parts of this atlas are still there: the tradtional Thomas Bros Pagefinder map, the excellent coverage of urban areas at smaller scales, the easy to use index with page numbers and grids clearly listed. But the large scale maps are much easier to read [less clunky symbols, better color scheme, shaded relief]. My one complaint is that the color used for unclassified roads [my favorite kind] is often hard to see against the background color [especially the green used for National Forests].

I highly recommend this atlas to anybody who needs a highway atlas of California with detailed maps of urban areas. If you are a fanatic about those unclassified roads I mentioned earlier, this atlas will get you to the point where you're going to pull off the main highway, but you'll need a more detailed atlas [such as those done by DeLorme] to continue your journey. I've always felt this was a 5 star atlas. The improvements make me wish I could give it 6 stars.