- Product:
- Microsoft Streets and Trips 2004 (company site)
- What's Good:
- Fast, easy to use, route finding & planning, finding places.
- What's Bad:
- Missing some Canadian roads, could improve GPS tools, no ability to update data.
Ever since the day I found Microsoft Streets and Trips 2002 hidden in my parents version of MS Works I’ve been hooked. When 2004 came out I snatched up a copy right away.
Streets and Trips is one of those programs that you wonder why everyone doesn’t have and use. The interface is simple, the program is quick, and the utility of it for a traveling person is second to none.
Some of the best features of the program are route finding & planning, finding nearby places, and a GPS option.
Streets and Trips allows you to find a location in a number of easy and intuitive ways. You can use the traditional search tool (name, province/state, country, etc) or you can move the map around and zoom in and out. Once you find an address, or location, you can do a number of things with it. You can add it to your “route” which will create detailed driving directions, you can find nearby places (anything from gas stations to ATMs), insert a customized pushpin and data to mark a location of interest, and a few other less useful tools.
Building a “route” is incredibly easy. Find the location you’d like to add to your route (you can specify as start, stop, end), right click and hit “add to route”. Once your route is built you can hit “get directions” and you will be presented with step by step driving instructions with time and distances. Also, on the map the route is highlighted in a bright green. I’ve used this tool to plan travel hundreds and thousands of miles and I’ve also used it to plan a route across town. Incredibly useful.
The “find nearby places” tool has been indispensable when traveling. I am able to search around a hotel for restaurants within a specified distance (which can be easily set to metric or imperial). I can then sort the restaurants by distance, type (Asian, Italian, etc), etc. This has been incredibly useful when in a new city and a hungry stomach kicks in.
If you have a GPS receiver you can use it with Streets and Trips. In the 2002 version you could update your location every 15 seconds (although you could easily find a hack to make this 1 second). In 2004 they realized their mistake and built in the ability to update your location once per second. Of all of the good features of this software this has the biggest WOW factor. As you drive down the street, or the highway, an icon of a car zips along shown on the virtual road on your screen (the icon is overlaid on the map). If you combine this feature with the route planning you are able to set your laptop within view and just follow the green line. The software’s easy ability to zoom in and out at this point becomes helpful.
One downfall of the GPS is that the icon gives no indication of direction while moving. Some other mapping software highlights the road as you go, or does a glowing comet trail to indicate direction and speed. These features would be nice additions as more than once I’ve had to keep my eyes on the screen longer than is probably safe to see which way the icon was moving.
An unexpected benefit of the software was that I now use it as a map reference tool instead of an online equivalent. Having an entire street map of North America on your hard drive makes searching and planning much faster. It also allows you to have that reference when in an offline location.
A nice feature upgrade 2004 has over 2002 is the indication of the direction of travel for one way streets.
Overall this is a killer application for me. I consider it as indispensable and it is one of the last rivets keeping me in Windows. It is highly recommended.
Comments
Mark - April 29, 2004 3:26 pm
Good to hear that they changed the refresh time to 1 second. Ya know, at 120kph, 15 seconds is close to half a mile? I really big problem when you are trying to figure out what exits to take!
ric - May 17, 2004 10:01 pm
I am looking for somthing that also gives audio driving instructions..ie.
turn right 200 feet ...
does gps with streets and trips to this?
Traveller - May 19, 2004 11:24 pm
I have S&T and a GPS receiver. Just got the set. Works ok. If there are audio capabilities, I haven't found them. Bummer. Makes the whole exercise a bit of a waste...
Vern Detert - May 31, 2004 2:28 pm
What makes of GPS's work with Streets and Trips.
Thanks
Dan James - May 31, 2004 4:11 pm
ric & Traveller - No, Streets and Trips does not have any audio capabilities.
Vern - As far as I know MS Streets and Trips is compatible with most, if not all, GPS devices. I'm quite certain that there is a standard that they all try and use.
Larry - July 20, 2004 12:57 pm
GPS devices that conform to a standard - I believe it is called nmea 2.0 or higher, are compatible with Streets and Trips. Magellan, Garmin, and most other devices conform.
Unfortunately, S&T leaves out some very important features for use with gps devices. When the route is created, it does not allow you to download either the route or the turns(waypoints) to your gps device. This would allow the gps to hold the route without needing a laptop. Many handheld gps devices, including the sportrack and meridian from magellan can hold large maps and routes and even give audio beeps and prompts to indicate an approaching waypoint. Leaving out this functionality was most unfortunate.
Also, it would have been helpful to allow the directions print-out to include gps coordinates. That way, without downloading anything to the gps one could make effective use of it to find turns, addresses, even unmarked ones at night.
mike - September 5, 2004 5:11 am
Is there a way for the Garmin Legend to work with Streets and Trips 2004 -2005 ?
What are the GPS settings. My Legend wont trak with Garmin software either unless it is in Garmen mode.
Mike
John Baird - February 19, 2005 7:52 pm
What about audio? when your in the car with no travel mate, and in heavy traffic, you can't be looking at your lap top. You need some kind of turning info in an audible way.
Jim Ewing - February 23, 2005 1:23 pm
What you really need is the Garmin iQue 3600, an incredible GPS with City Select software that includes full detail maps of North America. It is not only a GPS but a Palm Pilot running Palm III and all the related goodies.
It does give voice commands for driving instructions and includes all addresses, business like shopping and food/lodging, etc. Map shows your position and route. If you take a wrong turn, it recalculates route for you. An awesome unit!
Unit comes with Hot Sync cradle for your computer and a dash mount with 12V adapter/speaker for your car.
Jonathan Squires - June 21, 2005 12:39 am
I want to change the icon that moves as I drive from a car to anything else such as an airplane. Does anyone know how to do this?
john williams - October 24, 2006 9:35 pm
i recently purchased a garmin streetpilotC320 i would like inf on if i can down load microsft streets & trips 2006 onto my garmin instead of buying their product
/Thanks
John