Journaling:
Daves attempts to get us through Rome in 2011 with paper maps alone caused a family revolt. Sometimes wed walk half a block in brutal heat before realizing wed walked half a block in the wrong direction. We had difficulty finding street names and house numbers and it wasnt uncommon to exit the metro with no clue as to where north was. Eventually the family fired Dave and appointed Dan as the new navigator. On subsequent European trips Dave and I got better. We used the sun to find north and packed compasses. We discovered the signs in the Paris Metro that showed exactly where we were exiting. Still, it wasnt uncommon to be infuriated by Pariss not-entirely-sequential house numbering system or disoriented because it was dark. Our lives changed dramatically when Dave discovered - by accident - that Google Maps works even without a data plan or wireless connection because it uses a smartphones GPS locator rather than cellular services. In 2017 Dave skillfully navigated Venetian alleys to get us to all our POIs and my four paper shops. (I still pack map and compass - you never know when technology is going to fail.)
Credits: Designed by Soco, fei-fei's stuff, Anna Aspnes, Joyful Heart Designs, Aaron Cheng (Google Map Customizer)
I recently posted instructions for getting high-res Google Maps to use in digiscrapping. After more experimentation I think I've finally worked out most of the kinks and I created an updated tutorial here https://sites.google.com/site/scrapwithmugcheck/high-resolution-google-maps
High-res maps of about 2500x2500 pixels are quite manageable. A 3600x3600 that doesn't need to be "just so" is also quite doable, but if you want a 3600x3600 that's "just so," be prepared to spend some time working at it.
The top map in this LO is a corner of a 1600x1600 px image (it actually didn't need to be that large and I probably could have done it with a simple screenshot to pdf if I'd enlarged my browser window sufficiently). However, since I was experimenting, I captured it with only a Google map of Italy, Firefox and an extension that captures entire webpages to pdf and png. The bottom map is 3600x3600 done in Aaron Cheng's Google Map Customizer - you can google it or get the link at the end of my tutorial. I started with one of his presets and made one change - to have all the water black. Since it's a map of Venice, that change gave me a dark background to work with.
