I don’t know how traveling by car was done in the past. I mean I imagine the simple question “where I am?’ was difficult to answer at some times. I guess that some planning before went a long way. This and asking often about location and directions. Must have worked. Not for me though, who have the orientation skills of a closet door [I can easily get lost in a large,badly signaled, parking garage - if that's possible] and the social skills of a rug [don't talk to strangers unless asked and keep it to a minimum].

So, naturally I see the GPS as an exceptional answer to being able to travel, see things and keep the “getting lost” stress level to a minimum. Sure, it can be distracting while driving, it can make you take a longer road, may loose signal, etc. But overall the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

One thing though that you’ll learn the hard way is to carefully check the direction the GPS unit gives you for every road that is longer than 5 minutes.  When the GPS unit says it will take 2 hours in spite of the fact that the road in 60 miles and the speed limit should be 50+ all the way there is something wrong. When it tries to make you go on a road that is unpaved and a sign gently indicates that 4×4 is recommended something is wrong. When you are tired and it’s nighttime take 5 goddamn minutes to carefully check all portions of the road it suggests.

Here is a very unhappy itinerary my GPS unit, a Tom Tom One 3rd, made me take recently:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=CA-41%2FWawona+Rd&daddr=Merced,+Ca&hl=en&geocode=FWuTPgId9Xfd-A%3B&mra=ls&sll=37.489706,-120.127773&sspn=0.10161,0.222988&ie=UTF8&ll=37.561997,-119.884186&spn=0.812093,1.783905&z=10

This happened when visiting Yosemite Park, and was trying to get back to where I stayed over the night (Merced, CA).

Yup, right through the middle of the forest, through the famous road (at least for me now) Chowchilla Mountain Rd.

Same road suggested by TomTom and followed blindly by me The road through forest (5 miles) took around 1 hour, it was around 9 pm, pitch black.

The irony is the “good’ road takes only 7 minutes more:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=CA-41%2FWawona+Rd&daddr=37.646859,-119.895172+to:Merced,+Ca&hl=en&geocode=FWuTPgId9Xfd-A%3B%3B&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=1&sz=10&via=1&sll=37.492294,-119.685059&sspn=0.812852,1.783905&ie=UTF8&z=10

Being dumb enough to rely on the GPS unit itself… Priceless

Related posts:

1. GPS Path Recording – The Cheap Solution
2. 30 Days
3. The USB Charger Project