These fall into the “why didn’t any­one think of this before” cat­e­gory of amaz­ing! I can­not count the num­ber of times my wife or I have been dri­ving on vaca­tion, try­ing to fold or unfold a paper map in the cramped con­fines of a car, only to get frus­trated and end up tear­ing the thing or fold­ing it in some new con­vo­luted shape that more closely resem­bled a Japanese origami piece than a flat map.

The fine folks at Rand McNally have come up with an answer. Print the map on cloth! These maps are made of wash­able microfiber fab­ric that won’t tear or wrin­kle, even when wet. Best of all, fabMAPs require no folding.

They also make a safe lens cloth for eye­glasses, cam­eras and mobile devices. No kidding.

There are cur­rently only 17 loca­tions cov­ered by these maps, includ­ing the usual sus­pects like Midtown Manhattan, down­town Chicago, Washington D.C. and San Francisco. While most of the loca­tions make sense, some of them I just have to won­der about. Branson, Missouri? Ohio State University? Really? I’m not knock­ing either of those places, I just found it curi­ous that other loca­tions weren’t cho­sen first.

FabMAPS retail for $5.95 each, although some are marked down even lower on Amazon.com. For instance, the San Francisco map is down to $4.73. Free ship­ping too!

View the entire list of fabMAPs

Have you used a fabMAP? If so, let us know what your expe­ri­ence was like by leav­ing a com­ment below.

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