Can you imagine diligently creating a travel itinerary for your family’s vacation complete with maps, timelines and coordinates—only to find that once you hit the road all your hard work was for naught? To say you’d be irate may be an understatement.
If you are planning a trip to Ozark Mountain Resort any time soon—be warned—this blog is for you. For the past two years, dozens of visitors trying to make their way to the picturesque resort located in southwest Missouri have not rolled into the parking lot of the 150-acre vacation spot… instead, they’ve pulled into the driveway of Lyle and Tish Ashley’s three-bedroom ranch-style home.
How’s that for bad directions.
But, it’s not as though these wayward travelers hadn’t planned out their drives. In fact, in the majority of cases, they used the computer search engine MapQuest.
“We’ve had them from Nebraska, Wisconsin, Chicago and Minnesota,” Tish Ashley told local reporters once word got out that MapQuest was provding erroneous information. “I feel sorry for those people who’ve driven so far and end up on our one-way street in the middle of nowhere.”
For the record, Ozark Mountain Resort is a popular, lakeside condo rental spot in Kimberling City, located about 10 miles from Branson, Missouri. However, if you search for the resort on MapQuest, the results place the popular tourist destination several miles off the mark, next to the Ashley’s home on a one-way residential street on the opposite side of Table Rock Lake.
Tish Ashley told reporters some tourists “are pretty unhappy when they end up on our one-way street.” (Can you image trying to squeeze your car, trailer, and boat down a narrow one-way street—-mind you the wrong one-way street–then having to right your wrong… talk about a nightmare!)
After the first summer dealing with dozens of lost travelers the Ashley’s said they tried to contact MapQuest, but were given the cold shoulder.
“They said they were going to have some of their engineers look at it, but the problem seems to be continuing,” Lyle Ashley said.
The general manager at Silver Leaf/Ozark Mountain Resort, also said her company used to have a MapQuest link on its website, but removed it after so many people reported the directions were incorrect.
“We’ve gotten to where if they call we tell them not to use MapQuest,” she said.
Once the problem with the directions went public, a spokesperson from MapQuest, which is operated by Internet giant America Online, said the company would investigate the situation at Kimberling City.
In the meantime, the city has put up a “dead end” sign on the Ashley’s street to warn lost travelers.
Have you ever had a problem with MapQuest?
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