Not just any paper maps, they had textbook sized atlases of the entire delivery area with each street meticulously mapped out.
These were insanely handy and a new edition came out just about every year to stay up to date on construction and road changes. I remember stocking my car with these for any of the cities I tended to travel to because they were the only way to actually get anywhere unless you wanted to call a friend and get very in depth instructions on how to get there.
AAA is now mostly known for roadside assistance, but at one time their primary business was MAPS.
For a few bucks a month you could become a Triple-A member and yeah, roadside assistance was one of the perks. BUT ALSO you could pick up the phone, call their 1-800 number, and tell the human operator who answered that you were planning a road trip.
They'd get your starting and destination address. Ask a few questions: what kinds of hotels you liked, preferred gas stations, any interest in touristy things?
Then in 7 to 10 days you'd get a thick package in the mail of carefully customized maps. Each map was the size of a paperback book cover, perfect for holding in the passenger's or driver's lap. Each was enumerated starting at #1 and ending at #whatever number of minimaps the trip required, with a hand-drawn highlighter path drawn on the map marking the route from one edge to another; entrance & exit points for that section of the route.
Motels, gas stations, and (if requested) tourist traps were indicated in color coded ink -- again, by hand. Sometimes detours were drawn in red marker, overriding the printed map because AAA kept up to date on road closures & regional disasters.
These maps were customized for your particular trip, and were invaluable since GPS did not exist. Unless you were familiar with the local region, the alternative was buying a map at the next gas station and guessing.
GPS is amazing and I wouldn't want to give up the ease & simplicity of Google Maps, but my god the old tech was miraculous too in its own way.
Refidex my beloved - that's the Aussie version, the big book of maps that got my ass everywhere until years after I got my first smartphone. It has a full index of street names in the back with a map and grid reference, so you could flip forward and easily find it.
I was told by a taxi driver that in the old days they had to basically memorise the Refidex to pass the Taxi Licence test, since they weren't allowed to use it during the test.
BUT searching for a picture of the 2023 Refidex led me to this!
Brisbane and environs in 1951! Fully digitised with machine readable text and high quality images! I can buy it for 19.50 - nay, I'm GONNA buy it for 19.50! (Although I wish it was $19.51).
Holy cow, they've also got 1926.
Yoink!
in the UK all London taxi drivers have to do 'The Knowledge’. It takes 3-4 years of study before being able to pass the test, and is considered one of the hardest driving exams in the world
The Knowledge was first introduced in 1865 but has changed little. Drivers must memorise all the roads and landmarks within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross, around 25,000 streets.
I read the OP and was like, I wonder how many notes before someone mentions The Knowledge.
London cabbies who hold The Knowledge experience changes to their brains that are explained in every Neurobiology for Babies course. It’s a wickedly difficult skill: rather than the pizza delivery people in the OP, starting in one defined zone (pizza place) and radiating out from there, a cabbie starts a route in any position and has to navigate across a partially-medieval city with no grid pattern, deranged place names, and not many bridges across a very large river. It would be useless to refer to a paper map, so cabbies were required to have all the Knowledge memorized. This means that the paths and optimized routes would have to be at the top of one’s brain, ready for instant access. As a result, the cabbies develop materially different brain regions as they study and use the Knowledge. They have detectable, measurable changes in their hippocampi, with an increase in grey matter forming in those who pass the Knowledge test and use it.
When asked to navigate a route between two points, they describe the mental process as instantaneous and explosive visuals: it sounds as if the map generates itself behind their eyes. (One potential tradeoff, though, is the decrease in associated brain matter in areas associated with other forms of memory.) After retiring, the brains of London cabbies would appear to return to “normal” - when not exercised, the brain region dedicated to holding the Knowledge seemingly rewires itself - which is exciting because it indicates that brains are still capable of rewiring and adaptation even in later life.
That’s all very interesting for neuroscientists, which is why it’s in all the textbooks and underpins a lot of our understanding of brain plasticity (adaptability) especially in old age. After all, it’s only ever adults who go through this process: babies rarely do a PhD in becoming a human Google Maps.
Some science-fiction series, like Dune, have explored the idea of no-longer-human navigators. still, it’s under-explored. Today, researchers are interested in seeing how London cabbie brains could help with Alzheimer’s research, or other progressive brain conditions that deteriorate the hippocampus.
Cute concluding sentence, sci-comm joke, rhetorical question intended to provoke reflection but mistaken in the comments for an actual question.
THIS IS INSANELY COOL
Fun fact for all my younger folk:
You can still do this, and it’s good for your cognitive ability.
Start by turning off your GPS when you’re only a few streets from home, and navigate your way there. (Alternately, start without GPS until you get to the last known place on your route that you’re confident in.) Soon you’ll find you can do it from a few more streets away. Then a few more. I can navigate most of the West Valley without GPS now, or with just a quick look to check the street order if I’m up further north. It took me about two years to learn this, but I can actually give directions now without looking it up.
