Wrapping up final plans for our 3 week roadtrip out west this spring, covering large area from central Texas to Arizona and Vegas to the Midwest. Curious if anyone has any thoughts on how handy a portable GPS navigation unit will be for the rental car?

We've already mapped all our routes with yahoo or mapquest, but intrigued with the possibilities of being able to tweak routes on the fly, etc.

Any thoughts on spending several hundred for the added functionality vs. having the free maps printed out coupled with a new road atlas?

We have a hand held Magellan GPS and it's a fun tool that has helped us a couple of times in the 4 years since we got it.

My best navigational tool is my AAA maps. They are the best IMHO. I won't go on a trip unless I have a AAA map of each state I'm going to.

Utahtea

We bought our son a Magellen GPS for Christmas - he is the type who can get lost in the driveway. We tested it on familiar routes at home before he took it to college with him.

It always got us where we wanted to go. Sometimes it used a route different than I would have chosen with a map - sometimes its route was better, sometimes worse - but it always got us there by a reasonable route.

We even tried taking some wrong turns to "trick" it - it would alert us, and then re-route us to our destination. I would think this would be an advantage on vacation if you had an unplanned detour.

That said, I would not buy one just for this trip. If you would use it at home, then go for it. (I am a community health RN covering a huge area north of Boston and currently rely on maps and mapquest - now I find myself coveting one of these things)

If you do a lot of travel and you're going to make the investment, check out the Garmin StreetPilot. It's excellent and very user friendly. Just got one for Christmas (the C330) and have used it several times - recently roaming around wine country in Sonoma. It's extremely fast in recomputing if you take a wrong turn, and very accurate.

I recently purchased the software to use it in Europe.

We had a portable GPS in our rental car last summer when we drove the entire Oregon Trail (Missouri to Oregon coast) for a couple of weeks. It was very helpful (we had printed maps too), particularly when we were looking for a specific address such as a motel. Hubby liked it so much that I bought him his own GPS for Xmas.

We have the Garmin Nuvi 350 and are really happy with it. It has a nice easy to read screen and is also portable. It has a good battery life too.

We have one built into our Expedition, and I'd never own a car without one (at lease in our primary vacation vehicle.) The handiest part is the Detour feature. If you are stuck in traffic it will find you an alternate route that won't show up on most maps.

But, you still need paper maps for the big picture. I'm with Utahtea, AAA maps are the best.

Here's another option: We just bought the DeLorme Earthmate GPS program from Office Depot for $100. You load the Street Atlas into a laptop and have a small GPS sensor that attaches between the laptop and a dashboard or window so it can find the satellites. We compared its directions to Mapquest for several addresses and found them to be almost identical. We bought this after a friend told of getting totally lost in rural Missouri late at night and this program led him back to the highway.

The only problem is that you have to take a laptop with you, but we always have ours along on road trips anway.

Get the best GPS you can afford. Garmin and TomTom are two that come to mind (I have a StreetPilot III). I find it to be invaluable, especially when driving into the sun and unable to see street signs..."In 400 feet, turn right" is a comforting sound.

I'm with utahtea, get AAA maps, if possible get their Tour Books also. If you are not a member of AAA go to Wal Mart and get the 2006 Rand McNally Road Atlas, $4.97.

ttt