How GPS Saved My Marriage ;)

I love reading maps. Sitting quietly perusing an atlas is an infrequent but fulfilling way to spend a rainy afternoon. My car has at least half a dozen fold-up maps in addition to a North American road atlas, and I literally have a stack of them in my desk at home.

So why would I ever want one of those new-fangled, electronic GPS units?

Shortly before Liz and I went on vacation in Canada, we spent about $150 on a TomTom One (the new version), which comes preloaded with maps of the U.S. and Canada. True to my gender, I consider myself a master of directions, so I thought it was unnecessary. Liz wanted it so we wouldn't waste time trying to figure out where we would be and how to get where we were going. And so no matter what, we'd be able to find our way back somewhere.

She proved to be the wiser. Not only did it guide our path and provide rapid reroute instructions when I made the inevitable wrong turns, but it also contains addresses for a variety of "Points Of Interest," such as restaurants, gas stations, beaches, police stations, movie theaters, etc.

And it made our trip more pleasant in other ways, especially by reducing stress levels. When you don't have to figure out where something is, there's no conflict over what the best way to get there is, leaving more brain capacity for conversation and having fun. And when you're really hungry and don't know where you are, you don't have to resort to the first convenience store you see. It also avoided the clutter of printed maps and provided dynamic information about time and distance to points along the way.

And the technology is cool. The unit receives position signals from satellites and triangulates your position anywhere on the surface of the Earth. As long as you have a clear view of the sky, that is. The signal is lost among tunnels and under a dense canopy of trees. Fortunately there aren't many turns in those places. Much better for on-the-go navigation.

Not that I'm giving up my maps. Maps contain a variety of rich detail about cultural, historical, and ecological amenities that GPS devices (or at least this one) lack, and paper has a certain aesthetic to it. But when it comes to going new places, I'll always bring the GPS too.