Online Trip planer

[Eber123]

Good evening,

If everything is going well, we plan a trip through Europe next summer (3 1/2 weeks at some stage during July/August 2019). We had in mind the following:

Dublin -> (UK) -> France -> Frankfurt -> Strezlin (Poland) -> Pompeii -> Santander

There is a good bit of planning and I thought that it would be nice if there is an online tool that would help planing. What I had in mind was the following:

• Help to plan the route
• Help to plan (and find good) overnight stops
• Provide updated information about the local traffic laws (e.g. speed limits)
• Provide updated information about motorways tolls
  
• Maybe you can be used as a diary

I know everything can be looked up individually. In general I checked the route in Google Maps. Traffic laws can be found as well etc. But wouldn't it be nice to have this in one tool?

I checked this afternoon (wet and terrible weather) but could not find anything useful.

Finally my question, has somebody found a tool like this and used it? Or does everybody gather the needed information individually and create a portfolio with their tour information?

Regards,
Eberhard

 

[Wongo]

ViaMichelin is really good

 

[Eber123]

Good evening,

Thank you, I haven't thought about ViaMichelin at all. I will have a look.

Regards,
Eberhard

 

[Loz]

Google, google maps and a spreadsheet for me... oh and trip advisor just to check the reviews are okay.

 

[Hotel California]

Just check the weater and go with the flow...
Don't plan to much , don't just fully go on others reviews as they might have other intrest than you ...

 

[Eber123]

Good morning,

The basic planing is done. It is a sight seeing tour, but with clear places in mind.

Frankfurt
We visit my brother and stay there for a few days.
Germany
Driving in Germany of course is no problem for me.

Strzelin
We visited Strzelin in 1991 with my mother (she came from Strehlen, today Srezelin). We would like to revisit the places we visited with her 1996 (my mother passed away 22 years ago). We will stay in a hotel there.
Poland
I need to look up the rules and regulations driving in Poland.

Pompeii
My wife loves Pompeii. She visited Pompeii as a joung teenager and we visited Pompeii together 20 years ago. She would like to go back. There is a camp site just beside the Pompeii (I believe Sparacus Camping). Seems to be not that good, but close. We will stay there 2 nights.
Poland, Italy
The route is not ready yet, will it be through Czechia or Slovakia? Surely through Austria and then Italy.
I need to look up the driving / road rules and regulations of those countries. Tolls.

Santander
If there is time left I would like to stay 2 or 3 nights in a national park in Spain before we take the ferry from Santander to Cork.
France, Spain
This route is also not agreed yet.
I need to look up the driving / road rules and regulations of those countries.

Some of the trips will be to long for one go. So we need to have a stop (maybe two). It would be nice to have all the information available.
Because of the various needed information, it would be nice to have it in one place, especially the latest information about rules of the road in the various countries, tolls (where to get pay for them) etc.

Regards,
Eberhard

 

[Erbster]

Good morning,

The basic planing is done. It is a sight seeing tour, but with clear places in mind.

Frankfurt
We visit my brother and stay there for a few days.
Germany
Driving in Germany of course is no problem for me.

Strzelin
We visited Strzelin in 1991 with my mother (she came from Strehlen, today Srezelin). We would like to revisit the places we visited with her 1996 (my mother passed away 22 years ago). We will stay in a hotel there.
Poland
I need to look up the rules and regulations driving in Poland.

Pompeii
My wife loves Pompeii. She visited Pompeii as a joung teenager and we visited Pompeii together 20 years ago. She would like to go back. There is a camp site just beside the Pompeii (I believe Sparacus Camping). Seems to be not that good, but close. We will stay there 2 nights.
Poland, Italy
The route is not ready yet, will it be through Czechia or Slovakia? Surely through Austria and then Italy.
I need to look up the driving / road rules and regulations of those countries. Tolls.

Santander
If there is time left I would like to stay 2 or 3 nights in a national park in Spain before we take the ferry from Santander to Cork.
France, Spain
This route is also not agreed yet.
I need to look up the driving / road rules and regulations of those countries.

Some of the trips will be to long for one go. So we need to have a stop (maybe two). It would be nice to have all the information available.
Because of the various needed information, it would be nice to have it in one place, especially the latest information about rules of the road in the various countries, tolls (where to get pay for them) etc.

Regards,
Eberhard

We drove through central Spain this August and it’s lovely but unbelievably hot in the summer. In Northern Spain the park/zoo at Cabarceno is definitely worth a whole day - look it up; it’s quite unique I think (free camping too).


https://caliventures364847572.wordpress.com/

 

[bvddobb]

Finally my question, has somebody found a tool like this and used it? Or does everybody gather the needed information individually and create a portfolio with their tour information?

We usually do not do a lot of detailled planning for specific trips, but we do gather ideas from all kinds of sources: friends, forums, stories you hear, magazines, etc. about places we would like to go someday. And then we use the MyMaps function of Google Maps to create private maps there as a sort of repository to 'store' the info.

E.g we would like to go to the Pyrenees one day, and traverse them from coast to coast. Or to Scotland and the Hebrides. Things we hear or read about specific tracks or itineraries that people liked, or places to visit, nice camp sites or wild camping spots people have been, sights, walks, anything that interests us, we plot on our private Google Map for future reference.
It may be years before we actually go there, but until then our map fills with data of everything we are interested in, and we see once we are there.

This is also a nice way to create a 'log' of one's travels.

E.g. this link, an example of our 'Scotland & Hebrides' map under construction. This repository will 'grow', and one day we will be going there!
We have others, e.g. for the Pyrenees, for the West-Alps, for Corsica&Sardegna, etc. And several that have mutated to a travel log, e.g. for Iceland, Norway, the Alps.

Once we're en route, we consult such a map every now and then for ideas, we can load specific tracks we want to drive on our TomTom, for sleeping places we usually look at Park4Night, Campercontact or Google Maps (again) when we want to call it a day, and see what nearby spot we like. If we haven't found one ourselves already...

 

[gvick]

Hi have been to Santander camping 3 times.
There is a great beach and campsite 20mins away at Nerje (think I spelled it correctly or Nerja)
You are also close to Bilbao and there there are things like Guggenheim museum well worth a visit.
Looking forward to your posts next year

 

[CDinFrance]

We don’t plan much, but have an iPad with a 4G SIM card that solves all of our questions along the way...

Not sure about the other countries, but found ACSI to be pretty useless in Spain. Easy to find good campsites with Google.

 

[California4x4]

We usually do not do a lot of detailled planning for specific trips, but we do gather ideas from all kinds of sources: friends, forums, stories you hear, magazines, etc. about places we would like to go someday. And then we use the MyMaps function of Google Maps to create private maps there as a sort of repository to 'store' the info.

E.g we would like to go to the Pyrenees one day, and traverse them from coast to coast. Or to Scotland and the Hebrides. Things we hear or read about specific tracks or itineraries that people liked, or places to visit, nice camp sites or wild camping spots people have been, sights, walks, anything that interests us, we plot on our private Google Map for future reference.
It may be years before we actually go there, but until then our map fills with data of everything we are interested in, and we see once we are there.

This is also a nice way to create a 'log' of one's travels.

E.g. this link, an example of our 'Scotland & Hebrides' map under construction. This repository will 'grow', and one day we will be going there!
We have others, e.g. for the Pyrenees, for the West-Alps, for Corsica&Sardegna, etc. And several that have mutated to a travel log, e.g. for Iceland, Norway, the Alps.

Once we're en route, we consult such a map every now and then for ideas, we can load specific tracks we want to drive on our TomTom, for sleeping places we usually look at Park4Night, Campercontact or Google Maps (again) when we want to call it a day, and see what nearby spot we like. If we haven't found one ourselves already...

This is amazing. How do you create those trip logs on google maps? I’d really appreciate it if you could say a little more. Thanks

 

[bvddobb]

How do you create those trip logs on google maps? I’d really appreciate it if you could say a little more.

• Go to Google maps
• In the menu (currently the top left corner), choose 'My Places'
• Then choose 'Maps'
• On the bottom choose 'Create Map'
• Then you can add Layers to your map,
  • E.g a layer with tracks
  • or a layer with camp sites
  • or a layer with photo spots
  • or...
  • or...
• On each layer you can add items by clicking on your map, or by importing e.g. track files (.gpx or .kml/kmz or other) or POI files.
• You can name layers, work on their style (color of lines or icons, size, type of icons, etc)
• You can choose your base map type (map, satellite, terrain, etc)
• You can set sharing settings
• For the rest: see https://support.google.com/mymaps/?hl=en

 

[California4x4]

• Go to Google maps
• In the menu (currently the top left corner), choose 'My Places'
• Then choose 'Maps'
• On the bottom choose 'Create Map'
• Then you can add Layers to your map,
  • E.g a layer with tracks
  • or a layer with camp sites
  • or a layer with photo spots
  • or...
  • or...
• On each layer you can add items by clicking on your map, or by importing e.g. track files (.gpx or .kml/kmz or other) or POI files.
• You can name layers, work on their style (color of lines or icons, size, type of icons, etc)
• You can choose your base map type (map, satellite, terrain, etc)
• You can set sharing settings
• For the rest: see https://support.google.com/mymaps/?hl=en

Thank you very much for the information.

 

[IanE]

• Go to Google maps
• In the menu (currently the top left corner), choose 'My Places'
• Then choose 'Maps'
• On the bottom choose 'Create Map'
• Then you can add Layers to your map,
  • E.g a layer with tracks
  • or a layer with camp sites
  • or a layer with photo spots
  • or...
  • or...
• On each layer you can add items by clicking on your map, or by importing e.g. track files (.gpx or .kml/kmz or other) or POI files.
• You can name layers, work on their style (color of lines or icons, size, type of icons, etc)
• You can choose your base map type (map, satellite, terrain, etc)
• You can set sharing settings
• For the rest: see https://support.google.com/mymaps/?hl=en

This is fabulous! Thank you for sharing your expertise - I found the attached training session on youtube which I found useful;

(hope it works - my first attempt at sharing a link!)

 

[Eber123]

Good evening,

I tried several apps to organize our summer trip and though about the best way to organize the journey well in time, but still be as flexible as possible.

I decided to go with Google.com/Mymaps and Park4Night. I believe the combination of both applications will work for us.

Tonight I wanted to subscript for a year to Park4Night on the web page, but I am not sure. On request for payment the request will be forwarded to "https://payment.hipay.com....". It is a simple web page to enter credit card information and so on.

My questions to all Park4nightPro users:

1. Did you do the payment through the web page?
2. Did you get to "HiPay"?
3. After payment, how was the app on the phone / tablet updated?

Thank you for your help.

Regards,
Eberhard

 

[westfalia]

My questions to all Park4nightPro users

I only use the free version so i can't help you
there Eber.

 

[Eber123]

Good afternoon,

Thank you for the feedback Westfalia.

There are a few options I would like to try on Park4Night. For example to get a list of stops on a route. This will help me a lot for planning. I think this is a very hand feature.

Of course, the option to download maps and information before a journey is handy, for those cases that there is no Internet connection. We will use Google Map to give us direction, but I hope with the new European mobile phone arrangement that my download volume of 10 GB will bring us through the journey without causing too much extra cost.

I don't mind to pay the few Euros for Park4Night, but I just wanted to ensure that it is save to use the credit card on that web page (I don't have a PayPal account).

Regards,
Eberhard

 

[Amarillo]

Pompeii
My wife loves Pompeii. She visited Pompeii as a joung teenager and we visited Pompeii together 20 years ago. She would like to go back. There is a camp site just beside the Pompeii (I believe Sparacus Camping). Seems to be not that good, but close. We will stay there 2 nights.
Poland, Italy
The route is not ready yet, will it be through Czechia or Slovakia? Surely through Austria and then Italy.
I need to look up the driving / road rules and regulations of those countries. Tolls.

We stayed at the site next to Spartacus Camping. They are all pretty basic campsites but nice and close to the hapless city. A prostitute strutting herself outside Carrefour, just down the road from the campsites, shouted 'bel carne' (nice meat) at me. I felt quite chuffed until I realised that she was calling Meg a 'nice dog' (bel cane)!

 

[kave]

• Go to Google maps
• In the menu (currently the top left corner), choose 'My Places'
• Then choose 'Maps'
• On the bottom choose 'Create Map'
• Then you can add Layers to your map,
  • E.g a layer with tracks
  • or a layer with camp sites
  • or a layer with photo spots
  • or...
  • or...
• On each layer you can add items by clicking on your map, or by importing e.g. track files (.gpx or .kml/kmz or other) or POI files.
• You can name layers, work on their style (color of lines or icons, size, type of icons, etc)
• You can choose your base map type (map, satellite, terrain, etc)
• You can set sharing settings
• For the rest: see https://support.google.com/mymaps/?hl=en

Very nice tip there, however for the iOS crowd this feature in Google maps works really bad. I hope it is better on Android.
It seems it is a real struggle to upload many tracks to google maps too. You have to make a new layer for each track.

 

[bvddobb]

Very nice tip there, however for the iOS crowd this feature in Google maps works really bad. I hope it is better on Android.

Ehhh... We are members of the MacOS/iOS crowd ourselves... Works fine for us, what are your issues? (perhaps best to start a private conversation than in this thread?).

It seems it is a real struggle to upload many tracks to google maps too. You have to make a new layer for each track.

Ehh... Not exactly. See e.g. this map of ours: Norway track suggestions. We combine up to 61 tracks in one layer in this map.
The trick is, you can only import one .gpx file into a layer at a time. There you are correct. But you can combine many many tracks into one .gpx file, and then import that file in one layer. So, in the example above we have layers with 1, with 10, and with over 60 tracks in them, dependent on how we got them.
Or this one, our 2018 Norway trip. We combined all routes and tracks into a layer per week. Or this one, our ideas for the Pyrenees next summer where we have combined 17 tracks into one layer.

 

[kave]

Great, thank you.

 

[IanE]

Just started to use the wonderful Google "My Maps", loading places on my Mac. I've got up to fifteen places so far. I've discovered a problem though - only the first five places show up on my iPhone and iPad. I've been on to the relevant Google forum to find that the Google do know about the problem and they are working on it.

I'm reporting this here for info.

Ian

 

[Ting Tong]

Eberhard The area surrounding Pompei is pretty uninspiring and I’d stay in one of the cliftop sites in Sorrento and get the narrow gauge train direct to Pompei. It will give you a much nicer base with better options in the evenings. I think this is the one we went to which has sea access - Bella:

https://www.santafortunata.eu/en/camping-by-the-sea-sorrento.html