The Trailer Life Directory RV Road Atlas

This was a great Atlas addition to my RVing. The only bad part was that the binding started to come apart almost immediately.

DO NOT BUY THIS

When I bought this I didn't quite grasp from the other reviews just how bad the binding was or what that would mean. I figured it was bad, but it would probably start falling apart after a summer of usage. The second time I opened it pages started falling out. By the end of my vacation maybe an eighth of the pages were loose. Combine this with the fact that the the dimensions of this are too large to fit easily on anything but a table, or carry in most bags, and it becomes really awkward to use. Towards the end of the trip I just ended up ripping out the page or two I'd need for the day. They were going to fall out anyway and it was much easier to deal with a folded page than the whole book.

The listings are really annoying too. There's a push-pin icon on the map at the town that has a campground (occasionally this obscures a junction on the map). BUT you then have to flip to the back to see what was actually there. In the back you'd find the name of the campground, but not the address or phone number. So, you can't actually get to the campground using the information in the atlas, because the push-pin is on the town, not the campground's location. Campgrounds at state and national parks are totally glossed over. There *may* be an icon on the map indicating that somewhere near one end of the park there's a campground, but frequently there isn't.

I give it 2 stars because the maps were actually decent.

The binding is useless. Ours too was losing pages after two days, and you can't use it while driving because you can't lay it down without losing your place. But beyond that, the information in the atlas is not all that valuable. It is supposed to show routes that are suitable for big RVs, but only the major highways and interstates are indicated as suitable, which is something you knew anyway since after all they are major highways and interstates.
I'm really surprised that Trailer Life and Good Sam allow their names to be associated with this junk atlas. Just get the Trailer Life campground directory and a Rand McNally atlas. If you need big RV routes, get the trucker's atlas.

I must agree with the earlier review which complained about the book coming apart.
By the second day we had the book, pages were coming out!
And I'm not talking about the book being abused in some rough-and-tumble on the road
environment, falling from a moving RV...the book began to disintegrate on our kitchen table at home!

Don't know what the publisher used for binding glue when he printed this book, but the workmanship is lousy.

The information contained in the book itself is quite useful, but any potential buyer must be prepared to punch holes
in the pages and place them in a three ring binder, or face the risk of losing pages once they begin to detach themselves from
the binding...as they surely will!

I recommend that Amazon.Com quit offeing this edition for sale until such time that the publisher fixes his production problems.

three days after we received the trailer life atlas it began to fall apart. the pages began to come loose from the binding. the pages are quite large and will become wrinkled and torn quickly. it will also be very hard to keep the pages in the book, and to keep them in any order is impossible. i have rated this item one star but it fact, the atlas is nearly unusable.