T i m wrote
Rod Speed wrote
T i m wrote
Harry Bloomfield wrote
T i m wrote

Now, if you don't actually crawl out from under your stone very often
or aren't someone who likes doing stuff in the moment, 'planning' a
route 3 weeks in advance could be considered the fun bit of any trip
(till the first road closure of course). ;-)

Well said sir!

Cheers. There aren't many bits of kit that I would say this about
but if I lost my GPS I'd go out and buy a new one ASAP.

I wouldn't and in fact stopped using mine.

Ok.

I much prefer the phone, because I have that with me all the time,

I generally have my GPS with me when in the car

I didn't, but that was because I normally charged it using the mains
charger in the house, and put the garage/yard sales in it as an itinerary
when it was in the house the night before the garage/yard sale run.

And set up the itinerary using google maps on the PC and then
manually moved that to the GPS. I was going to automate that
but changed to the smartphone before I got around to doing that.

I don't put the whole lot in the phone anymore, just the ones
that I either can't completely remember where the street is
or which have a street number so it can direct me to the
exact garage/yard and I put them into google maps while
setting up for the garage/yard sale run very early before
the run starts. I have my own facebook group which has
all the garage/yard sales listed and ideally you should be
able to just tap on the address in there and have that
handed to the mapper, but currently facebook doesn't
allow that. Which reminds me, I must remember to suggest
that to facebook, they keep asking for suggestions and keep
enhancing their smartphone app based on suggestions.

but agree I well always have my phone
with me (assuming I haven't left it at home).

Yeah, I hardly ever forget to take it with me now.

and it does things much better, particularly with live measured
traffic and stuff like street view that can be handy at times and
being so easy to do proper google searches when the GPS itself
doesn't show you what you want POI wise etc and being able to
just tap on an address in the google hit or an email or facebook
'inbox' and have that auto handed to the mapper which then
directs you to that place etc.

And breathe! ;-)

Too radical by far |-)

Yes, but, all the above assumes you have 'Data'
on your phone and a reasonable connection?

No, there are plenty of offline mappers and
google maps can be used like that if you want to.

And it only costs peanuts if you don't bother.
I pay 7.5c/MB for data and pay by the KB so
I normally get a nav for about 1-2c for the data.

And is always completely up to date.

See above (or not even functional).

Doesn't apply with offline maps. google maps
reminds you to update them for free when on wifi.

And when out walking for exercise its handy to just go wherever
looks interesting at the time particularly where you haven't been
before and then just ask it for the best route back to the car etc.

Yup, routing back to a know point ('breadcrumb trail')
is also a handy function.

I prefer not to come back the same way I went
out, prefer to come back on a different route
so I move thru somewhere different instead.

A straight line from your current point to
the destination might be via a ravine. ;-)

Easy to check using goggle earth etc and for where
its dense scrub that is a nuisance to get thru and
rivers that are a nuisance to get across.

Same with wandering around a city as a tourist, just
wander around what looks interesting and then ask
it to show you the best public transport to get back to
where you want to end up at the end of the day etc.

Yup, or just take you back to the car.

Yeah, tho many big citys are a complete pain in the
arse cars wise now so its often better to park well
out of the city and use public transport within it
or just leave the car where you are staying and
use public transport.

Because I'm an old fart, our system allows me to
go anywhere I like on any mode of public transport
for just $2.50 a day and if the trip only costs $1, that
is all I get charged too. All done with the electronic
card everyone uses that you tap on and tap off with
at each stop where you get on or off.

Leaves farting around with timetables etc for dead.

Again, 'only' if you have 'Data' on your phone.

But only costs peanuts for that. I did the entire day
that I had to waste in Sydney for about $2 and that
included all the navs, deciding on a backpackers,
booking it and paying for it and all the public
transport stuff as well.

Yes I can use a map and do so, but not for route navigation anymore. It
gets opened once I arrive at my destination, to see what is around the
area.

Absolutely. I wouldn't do any real 'off road' stuff by relying
on the GPS alone and find it reasonably interesting getting
an overview from a nice map.

I don't bother with maps at all anymore even tho I still have them.

Much prefer to use google earth etc now.

See above.

Costs a lot less than the maps and there is plenty of free wifi too.

Often our destination is a campsite in the back of
beyond with no voice coverage, let alone data.

Trivially fixable by downloading to the phone before you leave.

There will always be satellite coverage (even if you
have to find a small clearing in the woods (though
less of an issue as the technology has improved)).

Yeah, never had to do that with the iphone.

However, the biggest plus for the GPS by far is the amount of
rows it saved between me and her when it came to navigating.

Yeah, that's what a mate of mine says too,
by far the best way to avoid arguments.

;-)

With GPS's as cheap, capable and user friendly as they are now
I really don't know why anyone (who ever drives further than Tescos
and back) doesn't have one ... unless they are Luddites that is. ;-)

I do know one who not only doesn't have a gps, doesn't even have
a mobile phone either and does do quite a bit of long distance stuff.
He doesn't use maps either, does it all in his head and by word of mouth.

Yeah, no one is saying you can't get about that way but (ironically)
no way is it as easy to be so self sufficient without. I think they
removed many of the road signs over here during the war to
confuse any invaders. Wouldn't be much point now of course. ;-)

They can and do stop those unspeakable
invaders from using the gps satellites now.

When his car key broke he had to use mine to ring his
wife to get her to come into town with the spare car key.
And I had to dial the number too, he couldn't even do that.

And that's the thing. 'Of course' you can get
away with all sorts of stuff but just sometimes ...

Yeah, it would have been a hell of a lot less easy
if he had been out of town when the key broke,
although he would certainly have been able to
get someone to stop and use their phone.