I recently purchased a Garmin Nuvi 670 GPS, mostly for my upcoming trip to Scotland. I'm curious though, how to use it in Scotland, as street numbers are infrequently used (thinking about the B&B's we've reserved, in particular). How have others been able to navigate around the country on regions and street names alone...?

Hi Barbara,

I can't speak for all of Scotland, but in Edinburgh the streets change names every few blocks so it's always really easy to find what you're looking for with just a street name.

Does it accept postcodes? You can use those to get pretty close to your B&B.
That's what we did last year with the built in GPS in our car.
Otherwise just put in the streetname and a random number and keep an eye out for your B&B when you get to the right street.

I use post codes (like your zips) which do most of the work. Do you have Post codes in your gps. Road names are the norm in uk and they work ok in UK gps as do numbers when you have them

Hi barbara. That model speaks street names.

I called Garmin and a nice feature of the Nuvi is that you can turn off the spoken street names and still retain the turn in 500 ft directions.

I thought that would be useful when traveling to a country where it would be difficult to match the spoken name to the written street name.

Have a great trip.

There is a problem w/ GPS in rural parts of Britain. They do not have "common sense" - in fact some villages/towns have had to create road signs showing an antenna in a red circle w/ a line across indicating that GPS systems are sending folks down narrow lanes or into farm tracks. Especially for lorries - lots of stories in the press about trucks getting stuck because they followed GPS instructions.

Not saying you shouldn't take your Garmin - but definitely get a road atlas too. Don't rely on the GPS 100% - you will have more "road sense" than that machine.

A good GPS system but beware if driving in Edinburgh as they have a tendancy to send drivers the wrong way up one way streets and also direct cars onto and along Princes Street. (Cars are no longer allowed to use Princes Street).
As has already been mentioned the postcodes (similar to zip codes) are generally the best to use to get to a destination.

I have a TomTom GPS that I have used in the UK and if something doesn't have an actual street address, I check to see if it is one of the POI's already in the software (a lot of the tourist sites are.) Or I'll consult an atlas (which you should use in conjunction with the GPS) and I'll find the nearest cross-streets or just navigate to the city centre and follow directions I've gotten from the B&B/hotel or off their website.

We've found that the GPS was great at getting us close to things, but once you get close, follow local road signs to the attractions. We once ended up at the public footpath to a castle instead of the car park.

And always double check the route on the atlas. The GPS will calculate the shortest route, but that might not always be the best route.

On my GPS, I can set a "current location" as my "home" location. That doesn't help the first time you try to get to your B&B, but once you are there, you can set your "home" location so you can get back home later.

Scottish towns are very small by north American or English standards so we have very few streets that run for miles and go up to number 10,000 or whatever. GPS problems are more likely to be caused by out of date information such as one-way streets. Using the post code is a good idea. Also make sure you use the full postal address as you will often find several small towns or villages grouped under a larger "postal town" for mail delivery purposes. If you only use the name of the main postal town your GPS could lead you to a street with the right name but in the wrong town.