You're in university aren't you Amy? Ask the cartographic staff in the geography and geology depts if they have a large enough printer; if they don't, they'll cerrtainly know which departments do, and where there will be a commercial copying company in the city that prints plans for engineers, architects, etc.
The European series of paper sizes (A0, A1, A2 etc, and similar B and C series - look up paper sizes on Wikipedia) is reasonably well known in the USA and even if writing paper is very hard to find in non-US sizes, the larger A series sizes are better known. If you look in the paper trays in a Xerox machine, you'll see that even US machines arre set up for A3 and A4.
The most robust way to transport rolled plans is in a c.3 inch diameter plastic drainpipe - any big hardware store like Home Depot will sell you a single length. Screw-on plastic end caps are the finishing touch if you need to carry plans around a lot.