Who here uses a GPS?

[CrossCountryRoads]

Just curious how many of us here use a GPS even though we know a lot of the roads we travel.  I like to use one in cities and also because I like how mine will give you the exact mileage and ETA to your destination.  How about you guys?  Do you ever use them or do you consider them "cheating"?

[formulanone]

I use the Google Map features on my phone quite frequently, especially for syncing destinations, creating a route, retracing my steps, seeing "what's over there" and county collecting. I use the GPS feature if I'm completely lost, or to get me out of a jam. I have a habit of making myself a route, and diverging from it out of curiosity, wanderlust, or the onset of some sort of ADD/ADHD.

I don't really like to use Street View much, because it feels like it ruins "the surprise", although if some exact  destination doesn't seem quite right on the map, I'll bounce between aerial photos and Street View to double  check.

I like paper maps (I'll stare at one for an hour, easily) but I don't collect nor carry them on my travels...my job requires a bit of travelling light.

[colinstu]

I never travel with GPS on all the time. If I'm at home & I'm driving somewhere new, I will sit down and memorize the instructions using Google Maps depending how complex it is (or scribble down notes that make sense to me). If I'm in the car already and need to go somewhere new, I'll do much the same on my phone but might let it navigate me too.

Other then that, I like traveling without tech. Just me & knowing the streets. Feels great knowing where you're truly going... and always able to figure out (or know) an alternate route if things are closed or there's bad traffic.

edit: I never have or use paper road maps or atlases too.

[Dr Frankenstein]

I was doing very well without one, and I always drive with a stack of atlases and maps. I, however, recently got a smartphone and I like to mess around with it, or for quick routing to spots when I'm trainspotting, or finding a street in a dense city. I also use it to record GPX files of my trips so I can geotag my photos later.

[The High Plains Traveler]

I own one but rarely use it. On a long trip, I will usually use Google Maps in combination with a paper atlas to determine a route and, if I need to manuever in what looks like a complex stretch of highway, may "drive" the route on GSV.

[PHLBOS]

No, I do not have a GPS. 

For trips to unknown areas, I'll get directions from MapQuest and stock up on road maps serving the area.  Since I'm a member of AAA, I could conceivably get an infinite amount of maps at no charge.

After seeing people my age and older, who have driven for years without a GPS, turn absolutely stupid and have delusions of god-hood over those devices (see my signature below); I have absolutely no interest nor desire in getting one.

[cu2010]

I have one. It gets used more often as a speedometer than as a map.

[1995hoo]

Just curious how many of us here use a GPS even though we know a lot of the roads we travel.  I like to use one in cities and also because I like how mine will give you the exact mileage and ETA to your destination.  How about you guys?  Do you ever use them or do you consider them "cheating"?

I have a built-in navigation system in my Acura and I almost always have the screen turned on and showing the map, but I don't usually turn on routing unless I need to find an unfamiliar address or I want to seek out an ATM or a gas station or the like in an area I don't know as well. I'll also sometimes turn it on for longer drives even when I know the route because I find it convenient to be able to use the "detour" option if we hit traffic and I want to bail out onto unfamiliar roads. That's one area in which I prefer the built-in device with its joystick to a touchscreen device like a Garmin or the mapping devices on my iPhone or iPad–if I'm in slow traffic, the joystick makes it a lot easier to pan around the nearby area looking for alternate routes compared to flicking my finger on a touchscreen. (Sometimes when the nearby roads are really rural back roads the thing just doesn't want to route me onto them and having the ability to pan it to figure out where a road goes is useful.)

With that said, my built-in device dates from 2004 and, while I've updated the trunk-mounted DVD containing the maps and points-of-interest database, there are some features that did not exist back then, the main one being traffic information. For that I have the Waze app on my iPhone. I don't normally drive with it turned on because it drains the battery more quickly and because I'm not keen on letting someone potentially track my movements, but when I get stuck in traffic I'll sometimes turn it on to check out how far the backup extends or how the alternate routes look. For example, on our way south this past Christmas I-26 ground to a halt as we approached I-95, and a check of Waze revealed an extended backup on southbound I-95. So we stayed on I-26, turned on the Acura sat-nav, and went a different way. What happens there is that the Acura sat-nav would route us onto I-95 but I'd immediately hit the button and tell it "Detour" and it plots a new route (in this case it sent us all the way to I-526 and then back west on US-17).

I'll also sometimes turn on the sat-nav routing for the reason the OP states about getting estimated time and distance info, especially if I'm meeting people and I expect they might call to say "where are you" or "how much longer." My brother-in-law does that a lot, probably because he has two kids we don't see too often and they get excited when we're coming to visit. So if I have the navigation giving me routing info I can say "45 miles" or whatever. (He lives in the Miami area and I just haven't driven those roads often enough to have a sense for remaining distance without the navigation, whereas if I were on the Jersey Turnpike or any of the roads in Virginia I'd know how far I have left pretty much just by looking around.)

I prefer using the sat-nav while driving to using paper maps because I used to throw the paper map on the passenger seat, but that's no longer an option since I got married a few years back. Ms1995hoo doesn't seem to do particularly well reading maps, so I prefer not to use her as a navigator.

With all that said, I should add that I do tend to look over either a paper atlas or an online map (Google or Bing) before hitting the road if I'm either heading to an area I don't know well or using a different route. That way I have a sense of where I'm going without putting blind faith in the navigation device. This is also important because of things like knowing which cities I might pass through so that I can anticipate things like traffic because, as I said earlier, the device won't plan for that sort of thing. The online maps might also make me aware of things like new roads that might not be in the database on the DVD yet.

[US 41]

Don't know if any of you geocache on here, but that's what I use mine for.

[Brandon]

Just curious how many of us here use a GPS even though we know a lot of the roads we travel.  I like to use one in cities and also because I like how mine will give you the exact mileage and ETA to your destination.  How about you guys?  Do you ever use them or do you consider them "cheating"?

I do not.  I also don't want one.  I estimate ETA and mileage in my head and figure out where I'm going from paper maps and memory as well as a bit of dead reckoning.

[WichitaRoads]

I used to when I got it as a gift, but I quickly stopped when I realized it ruined all of the fun of driving for me!

Now I just use it for teaching Drivers Ed in the Summer... gives me the ability to find quick roads to turn on... and I can use the speed feature as a cheat to see if the youngin' is violating speed laws. Also, freaks them out... "is that tracking me?" "Yep." 

ICTRds

[agentsteel53]

and always able to figure out (or know) an alternate route if things are closed or there's bad traffic.

that's exactly what I use a GPS for.  the other day, I was in Tucson and I-10 was flooded, so I used my phone map to tell me exactly what set of industrial back roads to take to avoid the mess.  There's no way in Hell I could've intuited a 5-mile detour like that.

[J N Winkler]

I think GPS have their place and the only reason I haven't used one yet is that I haven't really taken the time to sit down and learn to use one.  I was on vacation in New Mexico last September and turned off US 64 just west of the Rio Grande to find the John Dunn Bridge, the old, low-level crossing which has now been superseded by the longer, newer, higher, and much more stylish deck truss bridge to the south.  The itinerary I was following was not shown on the single-sheet map, and I did not have a DeLorme atlas with me.  I was able to make it by orienteering since it was a clear day, but the road was unpaved and rough with numerous low depressions of the kind that threaten suspension components and the engine oil pan.  A smartphone with GPS, or even the know-how to use the console GPS the car actually had, would have removed the need for me to rely on the sun and a dim memory of the route as shown in Google Maps.  This would in turn have reassured me of my ability to connect to NM 522 on the other side of the river without being stranded in the middle of nowhere with a busted oil pan.

[US81]

I have a basic phone GPS. I seldom if ever use it for navigation but have occasionally used it for traffic as well as the occasional finding the nearest or en route location of food or gas. Let me stipulate that I have only used very basic models, but I have played with this one app enough to think of it as only a toy, not really a tool.  It can be fun to see the routes it selects as compared to the ones I select - I usually beat the shortest distance or fastest time. Then again, I know the technology is evolving and improving....

[cpzilliacus]

I have the Verizon Wireless GPS software on my  Blackberry (yes, I am stuck in the past), but I don't use it very frequently.   

Every once in a while, it is useful.

[nwi_navigator_1181]

Even though I am an avid traveler and love traveling down the highway, I'm also an avid techie. I consistently use my GPS, and I will use no brand other than Garmin.

Here's my reasoning: I always enjoy reading atlases, something I used since I knew how to read. I like to think of my GPS as a portable atlas, and when the time comes to get somewhere, I like to see how it gets me there.

On the same token, I (like all of you here) know that signs in the real world are the final authority and not to treat everything the GPS tells you as gospel.

[agentsteel53]

signs in the real world are the final authority

nope, the road itself is the final authority.  if I see an old diamond caution sign in a field corresponding to a road that hasn't existed in 50 years ... I'm gonna walk over to take a photo!

[leroys73]

I rarely use one.  I like maps.  I travel 10-12,000 miles per year on my motorcycle plus 5-10,000 in the car.  The car has one but I rarely use it.  My wife does use it on business trips but I find it a pain as it usually does not give the best route unless it is interstate.  I will use MapQuest for distances and get a rough idea.  However, when it comes to navigating it is paper maps.  The GPS has been wrong or of no help too often for me to have faith in it.  I have used the one in the car to find a place to eat or sleep and even fuel once.

[CrossCountryRoads]

Since I'm someone who isn't too good at estimating mileage in my head, I do thoroughly enjoy the feature of my GPS that will tell you exactly how many miles it is to the destination.  As someone else stated, as much as I love looking at paper maps and road atlases, I'm also a tech junkie to some degree.  I like that if you have your GPS on, you have everything in a road atlas right at the tip of your fingers.  It's like a mobile road atlas to me, as someone else called it.  While I'm driving along, it's cool to see exactly where you are visually on the map and see it change as you progress.

[roadman]

I finally bought a relatively inexpensive GPS (Tom Tom XXL 540) a couple of years ago when I was going to rural upstate New York as part of a model railroad operations weekend sponsored by a group outside of Albany,  Even though I had plotted my course with maps and "step by step" directions, which I brought with me, I found it made a huge difference in getting around unfamilar terrain.

That being said, I generally don't use the GPS that often locally.  Every now and again, I'll take it with me on a longer trip so I can keep the battery charged.  "Sarah" has generally been accurate, but will ocassionally lag at informing me of turns or give some interesting errors.  For one, insisting that Exit 7 on I-87 (Northway) is a left exit, when it's not nor has it ever been.  She also hates it when I turn around mid-stream to go back and get a picture of something like an overhead sign (like I did on MA Route 2 east last fall after passing under the big warning sign at the top of the Hairpin Turn).   And when she refers to the I-95/MA 128 overlap as "Interstate Ninety-Five South - Highway South - Highway One Hundred Twenty Eight South to XX" , just priceless.

And I do really like the speedometer feature.  I'm generally not a lead-footed driver, so it's handy to have the bell go off if I become distracted and get going a bit too fast above the posted limit.

[Dr Frankenstein]

Don't know if any of you geocache on here, but that's what I use mine for.

Does geohashing count?

[myosh_tino]

When I'm just puttering around the San Francisco Bay Area, I'll leave my GPS at home with two exceptions.  First is if I'm headed to any location within the city of San Francisco.  I'm really good at map memorization EXCEPT when dealing with any location in San Francisco.  Second is if I'm headed to a totally new destination when I'm unfamiliar with the area.

I will use my GPS on any long distance trips, not so much for navigation purposes (although if it's someplace I've never been, my use is definitely for navigational purposes) but to provide me with intermediate distances so I can judge my fuel stops.  For example, after I get onto I-5 when heading to Las Vegas, my TomTom puts up how many miles before I exit the freeway and I use that as a "countdown" to my breakfast stop.

And when she refers to the I-95/MA 128 overlap as "Interstate Ninety-Five South - Highway South - Highway One Hundred Twenty Eight South to XX" , just priceless.

You should hear what my TomTom says as I approach the I-515/I-15 interchange in Las Vegas... "Take the exit right, Interstate Five-Fifteen southbound, US Ninety-Five southbound, US Ninety-Three southbound..." or when I approach the BL-80/US 50/CA-99 interchange in Sacramento... "Interstate Eighty westbound, US Fifty westbound, Highway Ninety-nine northbound, Highway Sixteen westbound, Capitol City Freeway west"  The text on the display is so small it's unreadable. 

[Brandon]

And I do really like the speedometer feature.  I'm generally not a lead-footed driver, so it's handy to have the bell go off if I become distracted and get going a bit too fast above the posted limit.

That would drive me nuts.  I'm more worried about traffic's speed around me than following a limit imposed by a bunch of nutjobs in a legislature.  Usually around Chicago that means 15 over on the freeways and tollways.

[Dr Frankenstein]

It's even worse in French. It seems like they get the text back from the translators, throw in a French TTS generator, and don't bother to test or tweak the speed, phonetics, phrase breaks and other parametres (not like they can unless they give one to a translator or native French speaker to drive around with).

On some highways with multiple names, it just barfs them at a fast pace with no obvious separation, sometimes sounding like it was one huge word. "AutoroutequatrecentunAutorouteMacdonaldCartierAutoroutedesHérosouest vers Toronto."

Another simple example: "East" and "is" are heteronyms in French ("est"). Mine always pronounces it as the latter ("eh" or "eht" instead of "ehsst", roughly).

Older GPSes also used to simply mangle foreign-language names – that's more obvious with all these English names in and around French Canada – but now, some of them seem to have some heuristics for detecting the probable language of a name and attempt to pronounce it correctly.

[Alex]

Since I'm someone who isn't too good at estimating mileage in my head, I do thoroughly enjoy the feature of my GPS that will tell you exactly how many miles it is to the destination.

I use it on all roadtrips because I find the time and mileage estimate feature very useful. It is also good for knowing how far to the next exit on some instances, especially when stretching a tank of gas.

On mountainous roads, knowing the curvature that is forthcoming is handy as well (The Hana Highway in HI comes to mind as does GA 246/NC 106).

Did a lot of walking in Honolulu and brought it with me to gauge if certain places were within range by foot.