210

Am I only one traveling without GPS? I love reading maps, choosing routes, following small roads, getting lost once a while, asking for directions. Does one who travels across the country need GSP? How did we all traveled without it not so long ago. I don't want to get GPS and I joust learned my sister is going to get one for my birthday. How to convince her this is not a gift I would like to receive? I wouldn't mind to receive a bunch of maps and travel books.

hop_along

I also love maps. And I've never used GPS and have no particular desire to -- but I surely wouldn't object to someone wanting to give it to me. Chances are, you might come to enjoy having it and find it a useful, practical alternative in some circumstances.

frankieblue

As long as its still packaged you can return it....and buy all the maps you want!

dmlove

I loved the GPS I had once in a rental car. We programmed in the information for our ultimate destination, but because we were early, we decided to do a "side trip" to my childhood neighborhood. This completely freaked out the GPS - "Turn around immediately. Go back. You have gotten off-course" etc. Funny.

rkkwan

The two are not exclusive. I love maps and I don't have a GPS (yet), but I wouldn't mind having one for travel. Not for planning my drives, as I'll still do that with paper maps; but mostly to tell me exactly where I am at that moment. A paper map is useless unless you know where you are. Sometimes, even a person very good in directions and maps can lose track of their location or heading in a foreign place.

Dukey

I agree with Rkkwan...they are certainly not mutually exclusive. I like using maps and I also like using my GPS.

210...use the uncomplicated method..just TELL her this is not a gift you would ever use.

And thank you for not making this one of the usual "Us vs. Them" "Maps vs. GPS" posts we've seen all too frequently here.

GeorgeW

I love maps as well, ever since my grandparents took me on summer vacations. As I got older, they'd let me pick routes. It helped as I got older and I always scored 99 percentile on the Iowa Tests(stop bragging, you fool).

vegasnative

My dad loves maps....I love maps...and I'm happy to say that one of my sons is fascinated with maps! We went camping about 2 months ago and I forgot to take the map...even though it was a straight shot up the highway from our house and I had specific directions...I felt naked without having the map with us! It made me sad to think I left if behind.
I have no desire to have a GPS system. We just moved to our new town here about 7 months ago and we know the area better than our realtor friends do that have been here for 2-years because all of their cars are equiped with GPS. Good for their business I guess...but I'm just a stay at home mom that loves maps...so it wouldn't be a great gift for me either! When we start to plan a trip, I go get the atlas out and I could look at it for hours and look all around the area...my husband thinks I'm crazy!

njgirl

Am I the only one who can't read maps? I've had many of arguments over this! Besides the fact that the writing on them is way too tiny!

zlaor

I recently got a GPS (TomTom 300 $190 from eBay - refurbished with 1 year factory warranty) and I love it.

It gets me there fast when I need it, allows me change routes on the fly (and recalculates to my destination), allows me to take small roads and still get where I'm going and has a great mapping tool on it.

For example, on one of our day trips to Stony Point Battlefield (NY - http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog...2260/tpod.html) we didn't have exact coordinated and landed in the middle of the town of Stony Point. Having the GPS show me a map, figuring out where I need to be by asking someone, and simply touching the screen and getting a route was very convenient (especially with a toddler and a baby).

zlaor

I forgot ... and I can read maps very well from my time in the military.

bm

I am a map geek. In fact, I chose geography as my major in college and now I use GIS(Geographic Information Systems) daily at my job. Then I come home and play with Google Earth lol.

dmlove

njgirl, you're in good company - I can't read maps either. I have to keep turning them around so they're going in the direction I'm going

RedRock

I use maps exclusively. Don't have a NAV System in the vehicle and never will. We also follow the old US highways anywhere we travel. Most maps today, including AAA Maps, don't offer much in the way of the old roads. A few states have listed on their tourist maps and with road side markers. Old US441 North of Commerce GA is marked as is old US27 in parts of MI. We have several old Rand McNally Road Atlas and a Sinclair Travel Book we use. My favorite Atlas is one that was published in 1966, not to old that it doesn't have the Interstate System marked and not so new that the old US and State Routs are omitted.. I have also picked up many old road maps at yard and garage sales.

http://www.us-highways.com/

http://www.interstate50th.org/index.shtml

http://www.50states.com/bio/nickname2.htm

http://www.route41.org/

We even drove this old road summer before last.

http://www.lewisandclarktrail.com/se...rail/today.htm

HAPPY MOTORING

xrae

I love maps! The only times I've ever wanted a GPS was to pinpoint our location. We wander a lot when we travel, and our roads aren't always on the big maps.

tomassocroccante

Also a map man - I love them especially before I go to a place (or even if I never go.) Maps are brain food. A GPS can be great, sure. But for me it's a little like the "give a man a fish ..." metaphor. Give a man a gps and he'll find his way. Show him how to use a map and he'll learn his way and probably be able to find it again next time without the map.

Anyway, mapping (whether using the computer or a paper road map or a hand drawn pirate map) creates methods and feelings in the mind. It's no coincidence that mental maps were used as mnemonics (whose book is that I'm thinking of here ...? explains it so well. )

So I arrived in Paris the first time knowing the pattern of the arrondisments, and in Jordan with a notion of the King's Highway vs the Desert Highway. I love looking down from a plane seeing a river or coastline that looks just like the map.

Plenty of times I'd love to have one of those pedestrian gps tools ... but usually that's because I don't have a map! (And didn't predict I'd need one.) The best laid plans ... truly.

Itlhermits

I had gotten my gps mainly for the Points of Interest. I've had some luck with my Magellan with the POI but also some lousy luck with not having the right phone numbers listed and at one point, it told me there was an aquarium where a residential street was. That was interesting detour!

It's been great for restaurants and gas stations, though.

canyonjane

May I take the liberty of pointing out that even those of us who love maps, and I am definitely in that category, still have the possibility of getting lost from time to time. If I were you, I would accept the gift with enthusiastic gratitude and keep it with you in case you get lost.

In spite of loving maps and studying maps, I have gotten so lost in Boston and Cambridge so many times that I quit driving there because I knew it would take me 30 to 60 minutes to get found again due to all the one-way streets and concessions made to history in traffic patterns. I have spent hours being lost in Rhode Island. I remember sitting on the side of the road studying the map and trying to figure out how one highway relates to another highway in terms of getting from point A to point B. (The state has improved the signage in recent years.)

Maps and GPS are NOT mutually exclusive. Besides, when your sister goes on a trip, you can offer to loan her the GPS that she gave you. You mentioned that you wouldn't mind receiving maps and travel books as a gift, but I'd wager that the best person to choose those items would be you.

Just my thoughts....
Jane

PhotoDad

I'm a map guy, but Boston is an excellent argument for GPS. Are you listening Santa?

I posted a poll on my blog with this topic and I'm the only one who's voted!

PhotoDad
www.familyroadtrippers.blogspot.com

J_Correa

I love maps too, but have found GPS to be very helpful in some situations. When arriving in a strange city, esspecially at night and/or when travelling by myself, when all I want to do is get to my hotel - I LOVE GPS!!! LOL. Another situation where I love GPS is the route maping feature, which I think of as a trail of breadcrumbs through the forest - wander around all day and then with a few keystrokes, get the route back to my hotel, campsite, etc.