Quick question, leaving tomorrow
 

I know mostly everyone uses GPS on their phones these days, but I'm also bringing my TomTom as a backup. I updated my Italy maps 5 years ago, and I don't want to spend $100 to update them again. Has anyone used a TomTom recently without updating? I'm thinking the Southern part of Italy (Basilicata and Puglia) might not have had too many improvements the last 5 years. Post Covid I am sure they will. TIA.

Are you sure you don't have free updates? My TomTom is more than ten years old and still gets semi annual updates.

The basics won't have changed but there might be smaller roads that have changed. Things that have gone to one way for example.

Thanks. I haven't been keeping up with the software on my computer, so it's a little late to find out. My husband thinks I should just ditch the TomTom, but I'm used to hearing "at the rotary, take the second exit!"

You can also download google maps for use offline. You can turn off cell data and your phone basically becomes a TomTom gps device, including turn by turn directions. You wont get real time traffic info but you will have gps.

you can also use an older phone for that purpose - as long as it can connect to wifi to download the maps in the google maps app you’d be good to go.

I'm just back from my 8 weeks in Italy, including 4 different car rentals. FYI, after using Google Maps navigation on my sister's iPhone, which included roadwork detours and traffic updates, I knew my outdated TomTom would be useless, so I dumped it in Naples before the next car rental in Salerno. GPS is not perfect, especially for walking around historic city centres, but it's pretty much up to date.

Good to know. I've had good luck with GPS on my phone for walking around city centers. - as long as you have a view of the sky it seems to work ok.

I also like your tip (on another thread) about street level view.

Only use my phone since we went smart phone, no extra cost so what not to like

Here's another vote for having Google Maps on the phone and downloading the entire map of all the areas you'll go for offline use. Once you've used a phone for navigation it makes using GPS only devices painful.