Garmin is buying Delorme

[peakbagger]

https://bangordailynews.com/2016/02...-garmin-to-buy-iconic-maine-mapmaker-delorme/

Hope they keep Eartha http://www.delorme.com/about/eartha.aspx

Its worth a stop in Freeport to see Eartha and go through the company store. A nice place to take a break on trip north.

 

[Stan]

It is regrettable, to me at least, that they're closing the map store. We have 16 states of gazeteers and find them most helpful in our travels; they contain a wealth of information beyond the maps themselves. The store has a lot of other good travel publications and maps, favoring the outdoor person, and, along with AAA and National Geographic, has been a favorite resource. At Christmas I could always count on finding interesting and worthwhile gifts for our neighbors' kids. Hope they don't abandon the printed maps with the expectation they can be replaced by digital devices ... none of which would survive what some of our maps have been through!

On the other hand, the blend of two way satellite communication with GPS devices could be a major leap in the value of both. I was wondering who would pick up the baton on this technology and carry it to the next level. Who owns Garmin?

 

[iAmKrzys]

It is regrettable, to me at least, that they're closing the map store.

We used to have a map store in our town and it closed about 15 years ago. Quite frankly, I am not surprised - the only paper maps that I buy are high quality weather-resistant hiking maps and I usually get them at a hiking store or at Amazon. I can't remember when was the last time I bought a map for driving. How could a map store still survive?

 

[Peaks]

Article states that Eartha will stay open for now, but I wonder about long term. Do we need to start a "Save Eartha" rally?

 

[Stash]

"Garmin’s holding company, Garmin Ltd., is based in Switzerland." Web site financials show nothing more.

 

[peakbagger]

A map store probably doesn't survive on its own but when its located next to a tourist attraction like Eartha just off the Interstate on a very touristy stretch of the Maine coast It has a chance. In order to have the public in the building there will need to be some sort of staff dedicated to keeping an eye on Eartha so its odd that they would not use a reduced size map store to offset the costs of personnel?. I hope they don't just lock the door and allow folks to look at it from the outside as its far more impressive up close and personal. I wonder if LL Beans would consider buying it and moving it to their retail block?

I personally like hard copy maps than more electronic map databases and a lot of other folks do especially the state Gazetteer's and as commented their market has stabilized for these products. Of course the gazetteer is only as good when updated and I expect that will suffer as Garmin shifts away from them.

There are some very interesting studies on how people develop a sense of direction and learn a new area and I think physical maps reinforce the learning process far better than GPS based trip software. The London taxi driver studies where research has confirmed that potential taxi drivers who need to learn "the map" of London's streets and commit it to memory actually grow new brain matter in the region of the brain where spatial learning is stored shows that its a skill that needs to be developed and I expect car nav software skips bypasses the training.

On occasion for work I end up in an unknown area for 5 or 10 days. I carry a GPS based car nav in my carry on for when I first land. It gets me to where I need to go eventually but frequently I learn that programed in biases in the software means a far longer drive. One time I landed in Toronto after a real long day and went on an 80 mile trip around the Toronto airport to end up at a hotel room that was less than10 miles via surface streets. On occasion in the summer I drive to over to VT to go hiking and I have to fight with the GPS to go the shortest distance which when going east west in VT inevitably means dirt seasonal roads up over mountains. I can look at My Delorme gazeteer and chart out a course in a minute but when I switch over to a car nav I end up having to break the course up into legs so the software is forced to follow my preferred route instead of its far longer route. In general my Delorme chosen route brings me out to interesting places in the woods while the software route tends to default to major highways even though the travel time is longer. On occasion I switch to bicycle mode in rural areas and the software is bit more adventurous but on occasion I end up on a circuitous route to parallel an interstate. What I end up doing in an unknown area is to pull out a map and learn the major highway systems and then start using the GPS for the "last mile" where I get off the highway and locate an exact address. In a few cases, I have managed to avoid major multiple hour closures of major highways by knowing that I could turn onto city streets and avoid the major highway. Google maps will also do this but far less elegantly and I expect it provides the same directions to everyone so the surface street route rapidly clogs up.

I expect the same arguments can be made with any technological leap so I expect I will just accept being a "luddite"

 

[TCD]

Fellow luddite here. On our drives around the country, we have relied mostly on the good old rand McNally Road Atlas. Great tool; very helpful! Like you, we use the GPS sometimes for the last few blocks; it's handy to find a restaurant or store in a poorly marked cluster of other buildings, but that's about it.

So I hope the paper map business survives!

 

[Remix]

Fellow luddite here. On our drives around the country, we have relied mostly on the good old rand McNally Road Atlas. Great tool; very helpful! Like you, we use the GPS sometimes for the last few blocks; it's handy to find a restaurant or store in a poorly marked cluster of other buildings, but that's about it.

So I hope the paper map business survives!

I think the paper maps are great for roughing out a trip, but having live information (reviews, tips, top 10 things to see, hours, stuff no longer open) is going to be the way of the future.

 

[iAmKrzys]

For me GPS changed my life in ways that I definitely consider positive:

1. Prior to getting our car GPS we always kept to familiar roads but we became a lot more adventurous once our GPS started suggesting alternative routes.
2. Thanks to GPS I started geocaching which in turn lead me to discover a great number of cool places and trails that often don't exist on maps, or their maps are hard to find. Actually, nowadays I often use geocaching as a way to plan my hikes to places I have never been to.
3. With GPS and geocaching I gained a lot of confidence when it comes to going off trail. I really used to stick to marked trails but now I love exploring unblazed and / or abandoned paths or wood roads and I am not afraid to check places out that are not really close to trail.
4. Hiking with GPS I learned to estimate my progress more accurately and now have a better idea of how much time it should take me to a next trail junction.

As to the OP, I think Garmin is really after inReach - before I decided to buy Spot I looked at Gramin's web site and I thought that Garmin was missing the boat on satellite tracking devices. The press release on DeLorme web site seems to confirm this: http://www.delorme.com//about/pressreleases/garmin.htm

 

[roadtripper]

Are you all suggesting that Delorme will stop making the Atlas/Gazetteers? Because I'll cry.

 

[peakbagger]

If I had to guess, they would probably spin off the printed maps business. They admit that it has become a mature but stable product after a decline, the problem is the great value of the Delorme guides is they are updated frequently and if they back off on expenditures for updates their value goes down.

 

[TJsName]

Are you all suggesting that Delorme will stop making the Atlas/Gazetteers? Because I'll cry.

With the ability to print small runs on demand my guess is that if there is a market, you'll be able to buy them. They might cost more though.