I just ordered a new Belknap Canyonlands River Guide. Mine is well worn and pages are stuck together. There was a different guide I used to like, because it listed good campsites, but I don’t see it anymore.
River maps seem to be a western thing. Lots of guides to western rivers, but not eastern rivers.
river guides, river maps - Bing - Shopping
I see there are Trails Illustrated maps for rivers. I’ll have to check them out but, unless they have flip pages like the Belknap, they’d be less useful. I drill two holes in the thwart in front of the stern paddler and stretch a bungee cord between them, to hold down the river map so I can follow it as I go down the river.
Looking over river maps makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.
I was looking through all the maps, on the link I gave, and there are a few eastern rivers, but they seem to be primarily for fishing. Probably too much private land for multiday trips.
Guides are very helpful. Some good rivers have little information available. Most of them have some problems or challenges. In the West, usually it is problems like diversion dams, fencing across rivers, or short seasons when they have sufficient discharge that stop them from being popular rivers.
The Lumber Heritage Foundation in Pennsylvania publishes and sells the excellent West Branch Susquehanna River Water Trail guide to 228 miles of one of the most scenic rivers in the Northeast. Great format with laminated map sections that separate out so you only have to take the ones that you need for most trips. Really comprehensive for river conditions, launch sites and camping and resource options along the route. I highly recommend both the river and that map guide set. They also sell the same format guides for the North Branch and the main channel. The shorter main channel one is under $12 and the other two sets are $20 each. I just checked and they seem to only be offering the West Branch one through other vendors at the moment (may be out of stock). But they have the other two in their “shop” section on the website.
https://susquehannagreenway.org/west-branch-water-trail-map-guide