Cross-posted from Geeky Traveller.
Cartographic scale can be a surly temptress. Occasionally I’ll be foiled by a poor-quality map in a guidebook or brochure, and end up walking six kilometers to cover an inch of map. GPS-enabled geeks don’t have this problem, but we can’t all travel to Tuscany with a utility belt.
If you’re looking for a simpler solution, check out the latest Google Maps hack, gmapPedometer:
As a runner training for a marathon for the first time, I found myself wishing I had an easy way to know the exact distance a certain course is, without having to drag a GPS or pedometer around on my runs. Looking at Google Maps, and knowing there was a vibrant community of geeks hacking it, I knew there had to be a way. So here it is.
It’s a great hack, and works very smoothly. Here’s a route I commonly take to work in Vancouver. Here’s a route I used to walk to work when I lived in Dublin.
Feature requests for future versions of gmapPedometer: allow me to enter a beginning and end address and then let me draw the route in-between, provide distances in kilometers as well as miles and let me annotate points on my route (bonus points for geo-locating Flickr phtotos).
DarrenBarefoot.com 
There’s a useful Vancouver version of this here:
http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/vanmap/interface/index.htm
Good for charting runs.
When you travel and want to get by foot or car from A to B then invest in a a proper map and work with it. I wouldn’t be fooled by guidebooks and brochures nor GPS and Internet printouts. Good road and street maps – portable, accurate and not a bit geeky.
This kind of publish appears to get yourself a lot of visitors. How will you acquire traffic to that? It provides a terrific exclusive twist upon issues. I guess having something traditional or maybe substantial to give information on could be the central aspect.