How to keep large maps interesting?

I've been having some slight problems with this whenever I create large maps. I don't like putting combat encounters around every corner, because combat will quickly becoming boring this way. So there's alternatives you can use, but after a while you will have seen most of these aswell. This problem usually happeneds when my players go into a dungeon. 90% of everything that's inside wants to kill them. Be it traps or hostile mobs. Does anyone have any good tips to break up the action in a nice way? A way for the players to catch their breath, without forcing them to leave the dungeon? My dungeons can last several sessions, forcing my players to figure out puzzles, avoid traps and face off against (often) impossible odds. Although I've thought of a few minor ways, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Rather than create one large continuous map, just create a few smaller maps tied to thematic areas of the dungeon and then abstract how they are connected. The Crumbling Holdfast of the Dwarf King would be the dungeon and some of the areas might be The Haunted Battlements, The Weeping Fissure, The Twisting Caverns, The Burning Halls, and The Throne Room of the Cursed Monarch. How they journey from one part to another can be a matter of shared narration or perhaps something in a mechanical framework such as a D&D 4e skill challenge. As well, if you don't already, consider making any dungeon you create factional and list motivations/instincts. If a dungeon is populated essentially by things whose main motivation is "kill all PCs," it becomes quite a linear affair. Instead, create at least two but perhaps three factions that populate the dungeon and have motivations that are somewhat at odds with one another. For example, the flame goblins that occupy the Burning Halls want to cross the Weeping Fissure and claim the far side but cannot because of the gargoyles that live in the crevasse (who protect the Stone of Fortune at the fissure's bottom). The orcs of Gra'zul are invading the dungeon from outside of it are stymied by the ghosts and wraiths of the battlements and throne room. If they can get a foothold there, they might be able to gain control of other defenses of the holdfast. And so on. When designing it, forget about the PCs. They're the wildcard that gets thrown into this powder keg - during design, just focus on what's happening in that dungeon between the various forces therein and what goals they're pursuing. Without intervention, one or more factions will achieve their goals and this is always a Very Bad Thing for the world, now or later. Then play to find out what happens when the PCs arrive with their own goals to pursue.

Great advice! Thanks!

What Headhunter said. But basically, question the assumption that everything in the dungeon wants to kill them or needs to be killed.

Make your dungeons quest based, so that the goal is not fight and kill things but get to X level and the things you fight and kill along the way are the plot twists and obstacles that they face. thus they have a clear goal defined so that the y know when they are "finished, and can go home and cash out." So that instead of "We go north to yon dungeon to kill everything in sight" It becomes "the Wizard Abacar has sent us to gain the object needed for the casting. we have three days to do it. Who knows what we will face, other than those Bandits he warned us about, that have sought refuge." Try and include time pressure or limited options. If the party can just rest any time they fell like it and all encounters are blanced, they can work their way through it like a cat eating food out of a dish at a measured pace. Set it up so that they can take the risky dangerous way that is fast, so that they can make it in time, with time to spare or the slow, easy route the long way around. Less fighting, less danger but one mistake and they might not make it back in time with some sort of drastic consequences. Include all sorts of challenges that fit the party, not just the fighters. Make some things one way gates, doors or traps so that the party in fact becomes trapped, but if they can find it, they have a way out. Use terrain like rocks, ice dirt or mudslides, narror or super wide corridors, heavy wind to blow out torches, etc. to give the party interesting tactical problems with varying solutions. Good luck.

Yes, time pressure is a vastly underused meta-threat. I highly recommend it.