Ditch the GPS: Your Guide to a Michigan Road Trip Without the Internet

It's a summer rite of passage for many in Michigan, taking a road trip across one or both of the state's peninsulas. Trekking is easy with GPS navigating you anywhere you want to go and apps for booking your stay. But is it possible to take an "analog road trip" these days?

The 'Analog' Road Trip Challenge

The question came up on the Roadtrip subreddit of Reddit with the poster asking,

I’ve kicked this idea around for a long time and I want to go on a no highway, totally analog road trip. No navigational devices at all.

How feasible is that in the year of our lord 2025? Any insights to this kind of idea?

So, their rules are no freeways/interstates and no navigation aids like GPS.

The answer is, of course, yes. Paper maps certainly do still exist and are easily accessible. Publishers like Rand McNally put out annual editions of their popular road atlases.

The state of Michigan also still prints paper maps available for free by request at the MDOT website and welcome centers across the state.

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An atlas like Rand McNally will get you to all marked state and federal highways, but to get even more granular, you need a DeLorme Atlas and Gazetteer. These books, and there is one for Michigan, offer drivers a much more granular street by street look at the state focusing on rural roads.

The Upper Peninsula: An Analog Dream

Michigan can also be explored fully off the interstate highway system. The Upper Peninsula really is the perfect place for this as I-75 runs through a short distance of the UP between the Mackinac Bridge and the Canadian border at Sault Ste Marie. Other than that, the entire peninsula is all surface street highways.

👇🏼BELOW: 23 Official Michigan Byways + 24 Bridges to Enter the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that Aren't the Mackinac Bridge👇🏼

Even needing to get between large communities can be done on surface highways. Nearly every Michigan interstate was built adjacent to a surface highway so it's very easy to avoid the freeways and opt for the small towns and country sides on a parallel route.

An "analog road trip" is not only doable. For many, it's desirable.