My friends - today, I want to offer a brief description of my navigational setup, for anyone looking to go on a longer road trip without an available or functional GPS unit. As I don't own a smartphone, only carrying a flip-phone (I don't like the notifications), the 16MB of internal storage doesn't leave much room for map scans.
Anyways - I'd much rather keep a copy of a local map, and a larger national atlas for cross-country navigation. In my youth, I'd briefly studied cartography, and so, prefer to orient myself by compass and paper map - having memorized most of the highways in my province, I can usually get where I'm going.
I recall an earlier time, when I was unemployed (well, I'm unemployed at the moment too, but this was a *different* time I was unemployed) and I had to work as a delivery driver. Being a courier gave me quite a bit of practice with memorizing directions. While by no means perfect, I'd say I can at least carry a general bearing, and follow a preset heading within 10-15 degrees. Compared to most of the chaps I know - I'm completely inept at navigation, though.
Speaking of excellent navigators - in the past few years, I've met fellows that can navigate dense city blocks without referencing anything but the magnetic north. Given the short distances involved with most drives, we can usually approximate to the true north. I must say - paper maps are very easy to navigate if you take some time to get yourself acquainted with the general layout.
As many of the spots I go to lack a GPS signal, or cell reception, having a paper map is excellent - it doesn't run out of battery, and I don't need enormous amounts of mobile data to use one.
Now, as far as communications go - being able to get in touch with others is very important. As I'd mentioned, I always carry a charged flipphone, which has around a week of battery life. In addition, I would like to be able to carry my ham radio, but, as I'd never bothered to pass the course (only using morse occasionally), I'd be unable to transmit.
While regulations permit an unauthorized user to transmit in an emergency, the last thing I'd want to do is stand before a tribunal, and so, I'd rather use a CB radio. These are more common on the roadways anyhow. You'd typically be able to purchase an inexpensive, multichannel unit on a website like Amazon; they can be found cheaply on Facebook Marketplace.
Drive safely, my friends.