Lorna Doone Trail, Lynmouth, Lynton & the Valley of the Rocks Walking Map

The idea behind the ‘Around & About’ map was to create a user friendly map for local walks. As anyone who has struggled with a large sheet map in blustery and damp conditions knows, although great for the larger picture and planning your walk they are not so easy to use in the field in adverse conditions. In our opinion Ordnance Survey 25k scale mapping is a world leader and it was our objective to create a map that was, shall we say, easier to use. Our first objective was to address the scale and enlarge it to 16k therefore making it much clearer so, if like me, you struggle to read finer print in low light conditions it would help. A bonus was the mapping seems to be more attractive at this larger scale. Other advantages were helping to make navigation more trouble-free and with improved clarity helping the walker spot interesting features so easily missed on a normal map. The size of the map was also important as we wanted something that was easy to hold in windy conditions but still gave reasonable coverage (approx 6.5 x 3.4 miles) for a decent length walk. We were constrained by the maximum size of our printer to SRA3+ but the advantages of being able to do short runs in-house, thereby being able to offer our small retailers a starter quantity of ten of their local map, was important. We have been laminating maps for many years so it was obvious to laminate the ‘Around & About’ to make it showerproof which not only helps to protect it but also enhances the look and feel. The map is creased so that it folds down to approx 6” x 4” and then slides into a plastic sleeve which conveniently fits most pockets. Each map comes with a limited Legend Card that has a footpath index and also a useful scale ruler for distance and estimated walk time.

I think the ‘Around & About’ map can be summed up by the following -

• Easy to read mapping at a scale of 1:16 000 (approx 4 inches to a mile)
• Laminated for showerproofing
• Useful scale ruler for distance and walk time
• Slips easily into your pocket
• Double-sided Map