How Should I Stay Not Lost in Brittany?
 

We'll be driving for a week in Brittany in September. Mrs. P and I are good with maps. I have a mobile phone. Maybe the car will have GPS (but at an outrageous daily price). There are used Garmins and TomToms available on Ebay. Is data coverage in rural Brittany good enough so we could depend on the mobile phone? How much data should I buy? Would a GPS device be more worthwhile? I bet maps at night returning to a hotel may not be optimal. Anyone with experience, advice, opinions?

Thanks,

AJ

I still use Michelin paper maps and will probably use them as long as I am still driving.

Every now and then I am given a rental car with GPS (I would never pay extra for it) and sometimes program it for amusement purposes. It gives the most ridiculous instructions -- sending you up farm roads just because they are 200 meters shorter than the main road at the next intersection. My advice if ever you use GPS -- if the GPS tells you to do something but you see a road sign contradicting it, always follow the road sign. You won't regret it. For finding a specific address in a big city, it is a different matter.

Download the maps you need before you leave home for either Google Maps or here We go, and use your phone. No data needed. I agree with following road signs over GPS generally. Paper maps are essential - they show you all sorts of surprising things a GPS just won't.

In rural areas I always use a proper paper road atlas first . . . and the GPS as a diversion . . .

Use the maps and consider getting lost might lead to a serendipitous discovery.

We never opt to pay for GPS with our car rental and it always comes with the car anyway. Sometimes we like the car's GPS and sometimes we prefer Google directions, except for the mangled French.

Back in the days before there was such a thing as GPS, we got lost many times and it was usually great. We still love getting lost in France. You'll be in a beautiful part of the world, so take the small roads and see what you see. Bumble around. When you need to head home, find a larger road where there'll be road signs; you'll be able to figure it out. A sunny day helps since you can figure out north/south/east/west to tell you if you're going in the right direction.

I am a committed user of paper maps/atlases wherever I travel in Europe, but I do have a sort of innate sense of navigation that leads me to places without much trouble. We don't use GPS in Europe - we have scores and scores of maps that I scour before we set off and while we are traveling. To me this is one of the adventures of road travel in Europe. Others would rather not bother and let some unpleasant voice give them dubious directions. I cannot stand the "Turn left at the Stop Sign" interference with my vacation. If I wanted a back-seat traveler. I'd have hired one. Leave me alone. It isn't rocket science to drive around Europe.

If you can't navigate what direction you're going, based on where the sun is, as opposed to where you are, well, that's elementary and that's what maps are for.

I drove for years in France and always used the IGN maps or less detailed yellow Michelin maps. But nearly every intersection in France has directional signs to the next town or burg and they have numbers on most roads, like N-2 - busy National roads to avoid -man have some of the tackiest commercial stuff along them in Europe IME just outside main cities. D roads are departemental or county roads and, except around big cities, they are delightful sparsely traveled well paved roads that meander thru villages. Getting lost in France with one of those maps is impossible.(also learn what Toutes Directions signs mean - follow them wherever you are going as they will lead you to more definitive signs. Petrol stations always have michelin maps but not always IGN maps which are twice as detailed and indicate so many more things. But the Michelin yellow maps are perfect too to not get lost - old school but so easy to glance it for passenger.

I particularly love it when it says "At the first opportunity, turn around and go back in the other direction."

I like both. I buy paper maps for driving trips. And I like some sort of GPS for confirmation that we are basically on the right track. If using GPS on a future trip, I would preload Google maps and then buy enough data and use my phone.

Using the car's GPS? I'd make sure it was set to English and that you understand the controls before leaving the rental car parking lot.

On one trip, we borrowed a Tom Tom, and the owner pre-loaded European maps. But I didn't practice with it at home, which was a mistake. I wanted to see the list of directions, and it was hard to find that option on the Tom Tom. Later my brother spent a half hour looking through it too. Another negative is that a Tom Tom does not know where the congestion is, and will drive you right into the midst of it.

One other nice thing about paper maps: If you DO get lost, and you stop to ask for help, showing someone the paper map, will be far easier if you have limited French than if you only have a GPS.

One of my kids can't stand the voice. So he mutes the phone, holds it and tells me the next direction. Once in a blue moon he gets distracted and doesn't tell me to turn in time, and we may need to turn around. Unless we have a strict deadline to be somewhere, I enjoy it. Far more interactive and involves him in learning his community.

<<I particularly love it when it says "At the first opportunity, turn around and go back in the other direction.">>

Admittedly, the first time I rented a car with GPS was eons ago, when the technology was new, but I was trying to find a very small village in France and the voice kept saying "Make an illegal U-turn now!" so I kept going around in circles. Eventually it took me to a farmer's barn. Useless.

They've gotten better. But they still occasionally have issues. And that is funny about the barn.

So far, I glean that we could get by with paper maps and the map/location function on my smart phone with preloaded Google maps. If the rental car should have a GPS that I can use without paying, so much the better.

Speaking of mobile phones, I only use the smart phone on trips (it's a cheap Blu from a few years ago). It still has last fall's British Vodaphone chip, which I assume has expired, so I suspect I'll just pick up an Orange 2 week tourist sim with what I expect will have more than enough data (5 gigs) and a ton of minutes and texts. Is there a good android app that turns the Google map into a talking GPS?

Google Maps is what you use on Android. It almost always just comes preloaded on an Android phone. My app store lists it as "Google Maps Navigate and Explore."

Have you ever set the directions for a location near you and hit "start"? If that doesn't work, make sure your audio for media is not set to zero.

Waze is the app that most of the people I know use for GPS instructions. I have uploaded it, but I have not yet ever used it except when I visited my friend in Guatemala who had it on his phone and directed me around Guatemala City to find the garage where his SUV was being held hostage. He made me drive the "other" car because he was afraid to do so himself.