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I know there are zumos and I have worked at Garmin...and I do travel with a smart phone.

But I like hard copies and to sit down and examine areas before hand. I think these are pretty good.
Missouri Atlas and Gazetteer. http://www.maps.com/map.aspx?pid=820.

I got state maps but those are pretty much worthless for hunting down a specific set of dirt roads I want to go to. They can get you to that area but thats about that.

I got one and it has all of the gravel roads that I have been on, I know not much yet, but still shocked me. Amazon has those for like $13-14. Used ones of KS, AR and CO would be nice when I find them. I don't mind ripping the pages out and stuffing them into the map case on the tank bag.

Check out this thread. http://www.rideforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1180

yeah i saw it but the MO stuff is too out of date.

This big booklet thing is at least upto date, even if it will be a mess to use once you start ripping out pages, could buy two or just copy those pages on the printer I guess. I thought about saving for a zumo, but rather get a better set of tires, tools and tubes, pump and assorted stuff for any trouble. Zumos are really more for big time travelers not some day tripper like me.

I have no experience with the new Gazetteer but the one from the early 2000's ... uhhh ... sucked. Roads that hadn't existed for 40 years were shown.

I have a MO Hunting Atlas put out by MO DNR that WAS great. Troy got a newer edition a few years ago and the maps were worse. Note that both Troy and I found the MO DNR maps better than the MO Highway dept. county maps. Several years ago Troy ordered county highway maps from MO. They weren't as up to date as my MO Hunting atlas.

Garmin maps aren't much better for gravel and dirt ... old roads are shown. Me thinks the maps Garmin uses are scanned from maps.

Best bet is to use the above three and then check using Google Earth or similar. MapSource allows you to view your route in GEarth.

For KS I have found the county maps to be pretty good, but I haven't done much DS'ing the past few years.

I am starting to agree with you after using some maps. Garmin does scan and google does earth sate analysis mixed with scans (you can find white line roads in fields sometimes where a ditch or tree line gets "whitened" to a road because its in a line where a road on a map was found nearby).

I think it was Ozarkrider(?) I was talking with at allkids house, he suggested just ridding out there and getting lost and/or going by the sun direction (or something like that). I have started doing that - drive south or east or west and just go look for gravel. I did alot miles of gravel just south east of Sedalia yesterday [Florence/50/Stover area]. A lot of dirt roads which much nicer than gravel. 50% of the time I had no freaking idea what road I was on or just left. Barrel down some state highway, dive off into gravel, drive to next highway and go find next gravel road....5 hours. I just stayed between 135 and 65, 50 and 52.

The Gazetter works ok but is too large to travel really, and getting lost I tend to like now if I have a crappy state map so I can find the main highways as I come across them. The only real plus I see to one is finding out where the heck you just had a incident when you call for help as a lot of places have no digital service (google maps) so you have to start walking to find where you are at. But often there where houses.

An update about a year ago to Google Maps on Android allows you to download a pretty good sized area map to your device, so no data connection is required when using this map. You can download multiple areas (square/rectangle). The download is the simple road map, not topo or sat. Your phone should have a GPS on it that will give you coordinates. Now whether the 911 operator can use those coordinates is another matter ... The newer 911 systems will actually get the GPS coordinates from your phone when you call.

Boy that will work! Must try that next time. Thanks!

Now I just take a free state map with me and go by the sun. It works really well until I get tired or clouds set in. Once you cross some highway you get a bearing and it works fine.

I do use those good maps to kind of figure out a rough course a few days in advance. Don't necessarily follow my ideas though out there.

Your right - The phone maps work great and so does the compass app. I only use those when just exhausted though, getting lost and not knowing is half the fun. But it does work!

I though about putting tracking app on the phone that geo tags via sms to my wife so she can track me. BigBrother or something. I hate sending street crossing texts "8 mile and Pleasant Plain" every so often, just map update for her would be nice.