Paper map sales are booming
Anybody remember Triptiks from AAA? You&#x27;d go to a AAA office or call them on the phone, tell them where you were going, and in return you&#x27;d get a printed spiral top-bound pad with your trip broken down in to multiple legs, the roads&#x2F;routes pre-highlighted, gas stops and prices estimated in, a list of sites for stopping off at, etc. All human curated and human annotated (the roads on your route were literally gone over by a person with a Highlighter). I&#x27;m sure it was all pulled from some sort of centralized&#x2F;normalized&#x2F;standardized data source but the human touch was definitely there.<p>They were awesome. When we were growing up most big family trips were in the car because gas and hotels were just so much more affordable than flying an entire family <i>anywhere</i>. I got to be the &quot;navigator&quot; on so many trips by helping family members read the Triptiks.<p>Apparently AAA still offers these, but they&#x27;re generated digitally now via their app, and you can print them off if you want. But something about those human-built Triptiks were really really special.