What would you do if you have to go or drive to someplace you are not familiar with ? The best option is to get someone sitting next to you and guide you turn-by-turn until you reach your destination. But how if you don’t have that someone? Well, you can rely on a good map and compass and doing traditional navigation, like what I did when I went to Kairouan and El Jem and Tabarka. However, if you travel alone and you have to be behind the steering, it will be hassle and sometimes dangerous if you always need to check the map before you make a turn.

This is the situation where the GPS (Global Positioning System) fits in. Good GPS with accurate map can guide you turn by turn as if you have a navigator by your side. This is what I heard, and I thought it would be fun to try it. I like new technologies and always willing to try (but I am not fall into gadget freak category, yet ).

So l bought a GPS, a Garmin Nuvi 350 with built in north America city Navigator map. It’s not the latest nor the most advanced one in Nuvi series, but at least I didn’t have to reach deep into my pocket. Function wise it provided what I expected from a GPS (not too much interesting in bluetooth gimmick provided in other Nuvi series ). To made a test, I planned to go to somewhere I’d never been. Then during one of the weekend in spring last year, I traveled to Los Angeles from Seattle, where I lived at that time.

Before I departed, I booked a car first with nearest Budget to my hotel in LA. So I packed my bag, carried the GPS and flew on Friday evening, arrived in LA and checked in a budget hotel in Mariposa ave. This hotel looked good on the web where I made booking, but when I arrived late at night, I found that the hotel door was locked with the steel bars, and I had to ring the bell several times until receptionist greeted in the intercom reluctantly and opened the steel bar door remotely from inside. The hotel’s neighborhood at night was a bit scary to me.

The following morning I picked up the car from Budget, a Saturn Ion. Immediately I mounted my GPS, program the destination and start the full day journey. Unfortunately it didn’t allow to enter multiple destinations (or was it just me didn’t read enough the manual?). I drove to the north along the beach from Santa Monica, Santa Barbara to Morro Bay. My GPS functioned excellently and it gave clear voice direction for each turn. When I gave it an on purpose detour, it calculated new route almost instantly. Every time I arrived in one destination, I reprogrammed it to show routing to the next destination, usually a nearby interesting place I found in the GPS (fetched from its map database).

The meter showed around 200 miles or approximately 320 km when I returned to my hotel in the evening. Never in my trip I was lost, the GPS lived up to the promise. The catch was the map. It should be as updated and detailed as possible. It should have the correct data of the roads, for example if it is one way or two way, to get accurate routing.

All in all, to me, a GPS is way much better than compass and paper map based navigation, hands down.

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