Travel relic TripTik hangs on in age of GPS - Arizona Republic

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David Michaels is embarking on a 2,000-mile birthday road trip this holiday weekend without a GPS, MapQuest directions or his favorite navigator, his wife.

Guiding the Scottsdale retiree in his Chrysler Town and Country minivan: a handmade TripTik from AAA.

It's a road-trip relic, a thin booklet of mini maps, each page featuring a stretch of the trip highlighted in orange highlighter. Mileage is printed in the margins; rest stops, exit numbers and other vital information is scattered throughout.

The TripTik for Michaels' three-week sightseeing and hiking vacation to national parks and the Canadian Rockies is his security blanket, 25 easy-to-flip-with-one-hand-while-you're-driving pages.

"I'm much more of a paper guy than a computer guy," said Michaels, a retired design consultant who turned 70 on Thursday. "I still write postcards, for God's sake."

The number of handmade TripTiks created for America's motorists has fallen dramatically in the past decade as AAA has added online and smartphone versions featuring turn-by-turn directions to reflect changing consumer tastes in an age of digital navigation.

In Arizona, just 836 traditional TripTiks have been requested this year through July, compared with 8,511 for the full year in 2001.

Dwindling demand has prompted some AAA clubs, including AAA of Northern California, to stop offering handmade TripTiks, which are time-consuming and expensive to make.

Michaels wondered if they were even still available at AAA's branch on Greenway Road in Phoenix when he visited in August.

He worried the receptionist might say, "Gramps, get a clue."

History of a relic

The TripTik is definitely your father's navigation system.

It dates to 1911, when a booklet of strip maps detailed a AAA pathfinder's route from New York to Jacksonville, Fla., according to AAA historians. The maps originally were printed on cardboard strips. Later, paper was used to save money.

AAA trademarked TripTik in 1932. The TripTik Travel Planner, which features turn-by-turn directions and is designed online and printed, debuted in 2000.

The original TripTik is most popular with older AAA members. Many remember their first TripTik.

Jim Cosgrave used one to drive from Chicago to Seattle for the Expo in 1974.

Nearly 40 years later, he's still a fan. He stopped at the Phoenix office last month to start plotting a Thanksgiving trip to Virginia for a family reunion.

"It's just very comforting to have in front of you," he said.

Many traditional TripTik loyalists grew up vacationing with the booklets.

"I remember my parents and other people getting them when I was a kid," said Marvin Hines, 55, of Phoenix, who works at an auto-parts store.

Hines sat down with AAA auto-travel counselor Veronica Jorda in Phoenix in August to plot the route for a trip to Arlington, Ore., where his friend was getting married.

He likes the idea of the bound minimaps because they are easy to handle.

"It's all laid out, and you don't have to fight with the (full-size) map," he said.

His friends have global-positioning systems, but Hines doesn't want one.

"For one thing, I don't want the thing talking to me," he said.

Hines isn't afraid to ask for directions, but don't ask him to look them up on a computer.

"I'm not a technophobe, but I'm not a technophile, either," he said.

Hines left AAA with a 20-page flip-style TripTik routing him to Oregon through Idaho, which he'd never visited, and back home on a more direct path.

Resident expert

Jorda offers peace of mind to AAA members who sit down at the table in front of her desk to plot their routes, starting with a highlighter and full-size AAA maps.

"Many people are used to it," she said. "They feel safer."

Longtime AAA members often want their children, however technologically savvy, to get an old-fashioned TripTik, too.

Jorda recalled a visit from a mother and son. He had recently graduated from a military academy and was driving to the East Coast. He clearly knew where he was going, but he agreed to sit down with Jorda for his mother's sake.

"That made her happy," Jorda said.

Jorda is the perfect person for this job. She has loved maps since her mother gave her an atlas when she was growing up in Venezuela.

"I fell in love with that book," she said. "I wanted to visit all those places."

She doesn't dismiss electronic directions but reminds members there are shortcomings, such as dead cellphone batteries.

"It doesn't hurt to have the little old map," Jorda said.

Jorda also loves the details a map provides. She said she would not have found lavender fields in Oregon last year without her TripTik.

More than directions

When Michaels sat down with Jorda, he had a broad outline of his solo trip.

When he left, he had a 25-page TripTik, several state maps, AAA TourBooks and plenty of travel tips.

She asked if he had a compass and Swiss Army knife for hiking and a senior-discount pass for national parks. She even warned him about bugs in Banff.

When he asked her at the last minute how to squeeze in a visit to Yosemite on the way to Banff, not in his original plans, she showed him how. They discussed Mule Days in Bishop, Calif., something he's always wanted to see.

All for free.

"I couldn't believe all that stuff," Michaels said. "How comprehensive is that service?"

Jim Lehrer, vice president of member experience for AAA Arizona, said that is one of the big attractions of the traditional TripTiks.

"It's the combination of the personal service and the fact that they feel like they have something that they can take in their hands," he said.

Expensive puzzle

Jorda says creating a handmade TripTik is like putting together a puzzle.

After she and the member plot a trip on full-size maps, she heads for the back of the AAA office and the large purple wooden cabinet that holds row after row of strip maps, each numbered and representing a major highway or road.

Maps on each end of the cabinet offer a color-coded key that only an insider could understand.

Strip Map 807 includes Interstate 40 in Flagstaff, where Michaels will begin his journey to Canada.

Jorda has to be careful to make sure the exits match up so that the route is continuous as a traveler flips pages.

"If it doesn't match, you've lost your member," she said.

Jorda pulls 25 strip maps for Michaels' TripTik, then adds the standard sheet for AAA's 24-hour toll-free roadside assistance, puts a cover on, binds all the pages together and highlights the route in orange.

"It is a lot of work," Lehrer said.

That and the waning demand - except from longtime loyalists - mean the handmade TripTik's days likely are numbered.

"I don't know how much longer it's going to endure," Lehrer said. "The technology is what ultimately will probably do it in eventually."