You can snag good topographic maps pretty easily from outdoor shops and from park ranger offices, but if you want to take a closer look at a place from the comfort of your own home, National Geographic’s released a ton of PDFs of various parts of the United States.




All you need to do it head over to National Geographic’s site, type in an address or zoom in on the map, and you’ll see all the different maps available for that area. Once you find that map you want, you’ll get a PDF packed with an overview and four different topographic maps of that area. It’s a nice, cheap alternative to buying them for yourself, provided you have a decent color printer.

PDF Quads | National Geographic