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The No-GPS Road Trip (popularmechanics.com)
Ezra Dyer, a reporter at Popular Mechanics, decided to ditch the GPS system he has on his car and the mapping service on his phone to see how hard it could be to go to North Carolina from his home, Louisville, Kentucky. He shares his experience: I begin downtown, by the river. It seems that if I get on 32 East, I can find Route 150 toward Tennessee. It takes about one block for my plan to fall apart. The street I'm on dead-ends and forces me onto a seemingly parallel road that soon wanders off at an angle. I discover that there's the fancy, Kentucky Derby side of Louisville, but also the Thorobred Lounge gentleman's club side. Somehow, I blunder onto Interstate 264, a ring road, where the exit numbers indicate that I'm at least ten miles from where I thought I was. And yet, it works out. See, this is the way you used to do it. You keep driving. I exit for Route 32 and settle in for a long drive east. I aim to make it to Knoxville by dinner without having any real idea of whether that's possible. It doesn't help that my atlas crams all of Kentucky onto two pages, printed with fonts evidently developed by those calligraphers who can write the Magna Carta on a piece of capellini. So I stop at a gas station to buy a local map. There are none to be found, so I pull into the next gas station. Then a third. In my mind's eye, there are metal racks at every gas station, over near the door, stocked with maps. Well, those don't exist anymore. I don't know when they disappeared, but they're gone. "Try Walmart," says one cashier, as if I could find it. About an hour in, I'm in traffic-clogged strip-mall hell, stoplights to the horizon. The upside is that I have no concept of time. Instead of compulsively checking a screen to anguish over my plight, I drive. I'm curiously peaceful. I can't do anything about the traffic, so I exist in it, placid. And eventually it gives way, the stoplights dissipating into lush Kentucky countryside. The Defender is happy to amble along at 55 mph, so amble I do, down to Route 150 toward the Tennessee border. Read the full story here.
That's basically how I still do all my road trips. Get out the paper maps!
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
... ends without at least one unintentional, sometimes dangerous detour.
No GPS, only maps? Are you insane? THAT'S A SUICIDE MISSION!
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
there was some kinda of paper navigation tool you could fold up and keep in the glove box. Or perhaps even a book of said previous things.....
perhaps I am among the last of an old breed at 32 but I can, with little issue, read and follow a paper street map (or an on screen one not equipped with GPS, or written/oral instructions like "turn right at the red barn and take a left after the mail box")
this stuff isn't rocket science nor is it magic.
I did this in 2010, but only because I didn't own a smartphone yet. Well, technically, I had a Moto Q set to just record the drive. But, the route planning was all done with a road trip book. Big deal. What's the point of this article? Gas stations don't have maps anymore? Yawn.
We drove about 6000 miles up and down the middle of the US this summer and it felt good to turn off the GPS and just follow the road signs every once in a while. It doesn't really feel like you're totally connected with the road when you're just waiting for Google to tell you when to turn next (or when to just stay on the road you're on which is does too frequently). The road signs really do a good job of getting you around but it might not the the absolute fastest route like Google does. Still, I prefer it every once in a while.
if they have AT&T. spotty coverage at best. Verizon is a popular choice.
It almost seems similar to everyone (OK, a lot of people) losing their ability to do mental arithmetic when calculators became popular. Crutches, that's all they are.
One time I was driving north on I-5 towards Sacramento when I had a tire blowout, which I hadn't noticed until I saw my tire go flying off into the field. I pulled over, called AAA and fetched my tire. After an hour, I was told they couldn't find me as I had no clue to where I was past the last exit. I gave the AAA operator the GPS coordinates of my cellphone. The AAA driver showed up 30 minutes later.
Look for a "Truck Stop" these are frequently found on interstates, and have _Huge_ parking lots full of tractor and trailer, and usually have Very large signs visible from a great distance.
"Pilot" and "Flying J" are common through the US.
Go inside and they'll have things called a "Road Atlas" for sale. they're moderately expensive ($20-$100, depending on the quality and size)
http://www.randmcnally.com/product/road-atlas you can purchase them online, if you have the lead time.
It's edgy and like, ironic, or something.
Hey whoa did you know there's this box thing in the centre console that's like Spotify, you twist a dial and can select different playlists? Stream quality is a bit shit tho.
Not saying it necessarily causes physical, or even irreversible changes to the brain, but it results in a sort of corruption/degredation of the mind. If your mind is dependent on being spoon-fed information to complete tasks, it becomes weak. Don't get me wrong, GPS is a valuable tool; I'm very concerned, however, that we're causing our species a disservice by eschewing the practice of such a vital skill in favor of GPS. Next time you're out and about on a cloudy day, ask someone which direction is North.
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
Imagine, no cell phone either and if you broke down on the road, having to walk to find a pay phone (which no longer exists)
Yeah, this was reality less than 20 years ago. wow, Millennials, the generation more out of touch with the past faster than any previous generation in existence. This goes along with the guy who "found" "free tv" using an antenna the other week.
If shit every really does hit the fan and we start living in a post-apocalyptic world where tech no longer works, Millennials will be the first batch of people to just simply die off.
Check out the other articles in this series:
"Going to a Restaurant Without Consulting Yelp: Can It Be Done?"
and
"Watching a TV Show without an Aggregate Review Score: One Man's Odyssey"
True think-pieces for our age
Cooking, swimming, map reading and navigating were all considered mandatory life skills in our house. You don't have to do them all every day, but you have to know how. My children learned to use a Tomas Brothers map in L.A.. Before they were old enough to drive I made them navigate.
And one day, when govt. or the super rich pull the plug, we'll be all lost, without any way to orient ourselves. Paper maps had one huge advantage over all this computer shite: they were locally stored.
It is really a sad day to see that "NO-GPS road trip" is becoming something noteworthy.
A long time ago, I was one of the first alpha testers of car-mounted GPS, along with dashboard radio and directions.
After doing this for a couple of years, finding they froze when you went skiing and all that, I realized it was just a pain in the butt, and changed my driving from fun with the radio on and the top down to worry and stress.
So, at the end of the program, I turned it in, and never used GPS while driving ever again.
It's way better this way. Only serfs become slaves to their tools.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Back in the 80s my family moved over a thousand miles away for dad to go to school. We were AAA members, and my parents visited the local AAA and got a TripTik. It seems they still have them (at least in name - seems to be an app or something now), but back then it was a linear map that was bound at the top. You would flip through the pages and the roadway you were to take was always oriented up / down along the paper. They would custom build it for you, inserting the appropriate sheets into the booklet, to get you to your destination. Then of course you could follow it backwards for the return trip. I remember they even manually highlighted the route, and would mark areas of construction on the map. They would also show points of interest and good places to stop.
Here are some pictures (random sources off the internet that match what I remember):
https://img0.etsystatic.com/00...
Fold out detail:
https://yearofadventure.files....
Here's one that's been stamped marking an area where delays might occur:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_-2gf...
Better known as 318230.
You think that texting while driving is a problem? Try being by yourself and having to drive and consult a map while driving. It can be just as dangerous. OK, maybe if you have someone riding with you who can play navigator it's not too bad, but I can only tell you in my experience I definitely remember being incredibly frustrated with passengers completely unable to read a map. I can read a map and I remember in the early part of the 2000s being in Spain and playing navigator with a really good map while a friend drove and you would not believe the nightmare we had trying to leave Sevilla. Almost none of the roads had street signs on them, so while I had a map that showed exactly how to get out of town and on a main highway, it was impossible to track our progress on the map and get to the exit, which required a few road changes. After an hour of basically driving in circles (it was late at night by the way) and trying desperately to find our way out, I spied a road sign to an exit road and it took some driving heroics but we got on it. I don't miss the pre-GPS days at all. Might as well take a horse and buggy trip to another state as far as I'm concerned. The old pre-GPS days weren't all that great.
This is ridiculous - something a twentysomething writer would come up with, thinking he was being clever. Map-making was, and is, a thing - only the medium has changed. Detailed maps have been plentiful and easy to come by far longer than I've been alive.
We used to do road trips sans GPS every summer. Sure, you might take a wrong turn occasionally... but GPS-enabled maps are not infallible. On more than one occasion, I've had Waze direct me down a road which didn't go through. Heck, I've had Google Maps tell me to turn left across an impossibly backed up major road during rush hour - the exact sort of situation I'd expect it to help me avoid.
GPS is handy, and our modern tech is great... but the "old way" wasn't bad either.
#DeleteChrome
Get on I65 South in Louisville until you come to I40. Go east.
Or, get on I71 east, until you get to I75 South, then pick up I40 east.
Who needs a map?
NORTH CAROLINA TO KENTUCKY? He's lucky he wasn't eaten by cannibals or found dead after the spring thaw. This is a stupid article. It's not even ironically amusing, it's just pathetic.
Seriously. With the proliferation and addiction of cellphones, cheap gps and mobile internet, I'm honestly surprised anybody even knows how to read a map anymore.
This is a good experience for the lot of you. Next time, get you a nice up-to-date atlas and plan your trip ahead of time. This sort of thing should be a requirement for high school graduation.
Don't let your analog skills diminish to the point that you are relearning the basics again. We are all spoiled with always connected internet access, cheap GPS, personal assistants, and a host of other connected devices designed to take the brainpower out of everything and extend your comfort zone into dangerous places.
This creates a huge weakpoint in our population. Imagine the crazy bullshit that would kick off if an EMP was to go off over a large American city, or a solar-flare blasts the entire west coast. The possible scenarios that could result in the compromise of our beloved electrical grid, comms infrastructure, and emergency services range from mundane all the way up to apocalyptic. With the coming proliferation of electric vehicles and other form of green(er) energy, we will only become more vulnerable.
Do yourself a favor. Don't let those analog skills die. Keep a map and compass with the flashlight/toolkit/blanket/water emergency kit you keep in your trunk. Use it from time to time, if for no other reason, than to remind yourself what a great investment that $1000+ cell phone is every 2 years.
Keep a good pair of hiking boots around too, you can thank me later.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Printed maps! How quaint.
But the GPS said to go this way!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Seriously, what's so clever about ditching GPS? Anyone over the age of 40 has done this without considering it a big deal (or worthy of posting on /.). People traversed continents for centuries without GPS.
For those who post about how dangerous it is to look at maps while driving - don't. Whenever I took a long road trip in the days before GPS I consulted the map beforehand and made simple notes - what junction to take, which direction etc. Hardly rocket science.....
Around 2000, I spent over a month one summer driving around the US with camping gear, a stack of AAA maps, AAA books for each state listing campgrounds, and no plan other than to see interesting things like national parks. I drove around 10,000 miles. Most mornings, I spread out a map on the picnic table and figured out where to go that day and where I would be able to sleep or shop if necessary. No GPS and a basic analog/digital cell phone that kind of worked (analog, $0.69/minute roaming) in most non-mountain areas. It was an unforgettable experience. It's a shame if newer travelers are unable to experience some of these things.
As the driver found out, USA atlas with 1-2 pages per state should be in the toolkit purely as a backup map. AAA still has good state-level paper maps that are usable for everything except in-city driving and are good for trip planning even with a GPS.
On most trips, I still try to carry the state-level maps and usually use them a couple of times for something. I have yet to see a good way on a small-screen phone or GPS to answer questions like "how far away is the coast," or "how much out of our way would it be to go to that town" or "what's the next sizable town within 2 miles of the road we are on," which a glance at a paper map answers. GPS will tell you the closest town but it may be way off your route.
I do think GPS has been a big benefit for safety. Reading maps while driving was never safe but often necessary before GPS.
You used to look at a map and follow the path. This idiot is driving freelance off in to neverland while not understanding how a map works.
This guy's an idiot. I'm all in agreement that road signs are inadequate, and most places don't have anywhere near enough (other than specific tourist destinations like the Orlando area (where it's probably sponsored)), but there ARE such things as printed maps, or pre-trip research on Google Maps, or just knowing the area that you live in.
Clear and timely signs in a congested urban area. GOOD ONE!!
Try doing the same with your bike, but without maps and relying only on the road signs, your memory and sense of direction. Your survival and finding back home is the price.
REI still hawks and provides a course on using a compass. They charge quite a bit for it and push it pretty hard in all their emails.
But the REI stores don't carry paper Topo navigation maps anymore. All the store help knows is "get a Garmin".
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Back in my day I didn't have GPS or cell phones. I did field service for point of sale systems going to mom and pop stores all of the southeast in tiny little towns. I was usually given directions by my boss that were similar to a Larry the Cable guy skit.I had no problem reading a map, changing the am radio station, shifting gears, drinking a beer, while smoking a cigarette. Kids today just can't multitask.
See, this is the way you used to do it. You keep driving.
This is not how you used to do it. This is what you do now because GPS will update for you. If you're using a map, then you pull over and find the road you're on or ask someone. In the worst case you keep driving until you find a cross road that is on the map too.
You may keep driving if you have decent sense of direction and know that you can get back on your route. But obviously this person was not capable of that. And you certainly don't decide to get a map while your already lost. Hell, I still keep an atlas in the back seat pocket, just in case.
Back when I was a rich guy and could afford $80 a Hobb's hour to fly, an acquaintance of mine answered this when asked," What's your flight plan?"
He held up his aviation Garmin and said this, "Right here!"
Garmin's are flaky to this day. He ended up on my tail - with my charts and everything.
Technology fails. It will fail.
Gimme a compass and an altimeter and I'll find my way ....
Look, I love technology as much as the next guy (possibly much more when the next guy isn't on slashdot), but... I mean... really?
Roads and cars do not need GPS to function. They have existed in more-or-less the same form for decades and have not really changed since GPS became mainstream.
I usually absolutely disagree with alarmists that say technology is going to "ruin" people, but seriously, if people consider being able to drive your car to a different state without GPS to be "an accomplishment", I think we have a problem.
A few years back I went to a foreign country and my GPS stopped working. I somehow managed to navigate by looking at a map and planning ahead and then reading road signs. I guess I'm friggin batman.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
...did a road trip become rocket science that requires a computer?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
As far as I know every interstate still has rest areas and some of them are called "Welcome Centers". They have free maps of the state you're in and sometimes the neighboring states as well. Usually, the welcome centers are near the state borders but some of them are more in the middle of the state.
--
JimFive
Please stop using the word theory when you mean hypothesis.
I use GPS apps a lot - but not so much for directions. Or sometimes I use them to find where something else, but then I do a lot of my own navigation to get there because I have a better idea of a route I want to take than the app does...
There are all kinds of stories of people following GPS directions to do crazy things, but there's an even bigger problem of following directions where it's not a huge problem, just sub-optimal when just glancing at the map would quickly have let you choose a better immediate path.
So don't throw away that GPS, instead start navigating again with the phone as an ever-ready source of mostly accurate maps.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Indeed. I used paper maps all the time for about 3 decades. Might as well write about "life before cars" or "what's it like to be a cowboy". In this case you don't even have to try it yourself, just ask us fogies, we're still here!
I do have an odd little "lost" story, though. Once on a lone biz trip to Washington DC area I decided to do some sight-seeing. On my way back to my motel, I ended up lost as my paper maps were failing me. I spotted a big hotel/restaurant/ball-room and decided to stop in for help (and pee).
There were rows and rows of long dinner tables with appetizers on them ready to be eaten, but NO PEOPLE! I kept walking around looking for a person, anybody, but came up empty. It was like a ghost-town with hungry ghosts.
I was about to give up and leave, when I turned a corner and nearly collided into a dinner servant. We were both very surprised and stared at each other wide-eyed. She gave me directions, thankfully, and I was on may way. She was the only person I encountered there. The tune "Hotel California" always brings up that memory.
Table-ized A.I.
Although I do all my road trips mostly using my phone maps, I always carry an atlas of the U.S. when driving and have had to use it at times when I visited some small cities far from the highway and had to go on to new destinations I could not look up...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Hey everybody, they Google maps on paper now!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Perhaps the Popular Mechanics reporter is just showing what happens when previously common skills are allowed to atrophy in favor of new convenient tools. This is a common occurrence, e.g., driving a stick shift.
I still remember planning out cross-country road trips using just a road atlas. I wrote down turn-by-turn instructions along with mileage hints that I would use by mentally keeping track of the last odometer reading (back when my odometer showed tenths of miles). Because I had to actually keep alert watching out for road signs and odometer readings, I found that I actually missed fewer turns than I do now by relying solely on the GPS.
back in the day of just printed maps from google + map books.
I was on a trip at hit big traffic and had to look at an map with limited detail of the area to get off and go though a few local roads to get back on the other side of the backup (car cash + road work + big event + under sized highway) the other way going into the work zone was like an 2-3+ mile jam. Later in the trip I missed the right way at an ramp split and had to ask at an gas station down the road on how to get to my destination (ended being just keep going a bit more till the next highway and get on) From the limited detail map I saw that other road just did not know if it was an full interchange / how far.
Now if I had an phone I am of been able to live traffic + rerouting info (but this was years ago) and maybe with an GSP I would of gotten better ramp / lane info (when was that added? to most of them)
I use the holistic approach. Surely someone else is going where I'm going so I follow them :)
There were rows and rows of long dinner tables with appetizers on them ready to be eaten, but NO PEOPLE! I kept walking around looking for a person, anybody, but came up empty. It was like a ghost-town with hungry ghosts.
Makes me think of "Spirited Away"... probably a good thing you didn't eat the food. ;-)
#DeleteChrome
Nanny state government, helicopter parents, whiny ass teachers, drug warriors, etc. I mean this generation is going to be in power soon and they can't find their way around without GPS. This guy doesn't even know his own city well enough.
At least he's making an attempt anyway.
But for a generation raised on playdates and everything scheduled for them I just don't know. If you can't figure out your own city streets, if fear keeps you from walking around your own neighborhood or trying a restaurant without reading reviews, maybe you should pack it up.
...for decades. I'm 70. It works, but it sucks. Basically you have to read the make, MEMORIZE your turns, and then go. On interstates, that'll take you a long ways, but in town? Forget it, you're going to have to stop after a while and memorize the next set of turns if it goes on too long. Then of course there's the question of whether this is the right turn or is it the interesection that is 200 feet up the road. Signs? Signs? We don't need no steekin' signs.... yes we do, but if they're the size of a postage stamp, it matters with a map, not so much with a GPS. And then there's the signs that are big enough, but have 6 trees growing up around them and are covered with a poison ivy plant yet to boot.
Driving has always been an adventure, but we don't have to get silly about it. Use the GPS...
the route is the goal :-) Nuff said
He is missing an important tool: while in a gas station, ask about how to reach the destination, or at least, the next POI.
I'm old enough that I have used maps. Reading them is the easy part. the hard part is getting the !@#$ things folded up and put back in the glove box. Nobody I knew ever managed to do that right!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Not that long ago (a bit more than a decade or so) Cars didn't have GPS. Long before we had them at all, I used to drive regularly from Detroit to DC and Texas. I could even make it back from those destinations! :O
When I moved from Detroit to CA, I planned my route with maps and drove based on my instructions with maps as a backup. I can tell East from West by looking at the Sun, so I can tell if I'm going the right direction. All of this stuff used to be 2nd nature to people. Now I have to read about some person's heroic effort to travel about 500 miles? Really?
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Ever been halfway to your destination when "Satellite signal lost" is heard over the speaker? Then you miss an important exit in the time it takes the GPS to regain signal and re-calculate? This happened several times for me, along with the realization that I was becoming more and more directionally challenged by relying 100% on GPS. I still use GPS to this day. But you know what? Usually before you click the 'guide me with your sweet voice, robot lady' button, the GPS app (google maps for me) plots out a course on a map for you that is zoomable and superior to any written map. I take a few minutes to analyze the route, using my brain to plot out the course and making notes of possible alternative routes. This way you have the course in your head, you can still get there if the GPS signal is lost or the app crashes, you are still exercising the part of your brain that modern humans should keep, and you can rely on the GPS lady until things go awry.
I recommend all humans do this, you never know when you will be without a GPS device in your hometown (or even farther!) trying to get home. Its a basic survival technique, and I have learned over the years not to let basic survival techniques be lost to technological dependence. (e.g. know how to use CPR, and don't expect to be able to look up on youtube 'how to perform CPR' in an emergency)
Also: If you live in America and you are going from one state to another, you don't really need GPS, or a map to get there. The roads are numbered according to orientation, the signs are aplenty leading you to the next major destination. If you are in New Mexico and want to go to Denver, just follow signs for 'Pueblo' then follow signs for 'Denver'. Its probably the most user-friendly road navigation system ever created.
A girl just asks for directions.
$13.46 from Amazon Prime.
I have never used a GPS and never had a single problem getting to a destination. This includes a 2,100 mile cross-country move from California to Illinois, visiting my brother in Indiana, and visiting relatives across California when I still lived there. The only modern convenience I use is Google Maps. A glance over of the optimum route to take, street view to get a visual reference of what to look for when I get near key turns, and estimated travel time. Once I have completed a trip once I never need to refer back to the map, repeat trips are completed off of visual memory alone. When I bought my first car I drove to my grandparent's house (4 hour drive) without any preparation, I already knew what roads and turns to make having looked out the window during the countless trips my parent's brought me on. Turn left at McDonald's, turn right at CircleK, it's not hard. What are Millennials doing when driving that prevents them from making mental notes of what they are seeing when driving?
As someone who has been driving longer then GPS has been ubiquitous, this made me cringe and lament for mankind.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
When people didn't have gps they generally found the right maps for the route before they left. If such common sense was utilized here it wouldn't have been much of a story.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
When I was six years old, it was a game for me to try to figure out where we'd be in an hour or exactly when we'd get to our destination. Of course, most speed limits at the time were 60mph or 30mph, making it much easier.
Through most of my life of driving, I've spent a couple of days when I first move to a place memorizing the map. I also have a really good sense of compass direction. So, if you know where you are in relation to the major roads in the area and can recognize the difference between smaller and larger roads going in the direction you want to go, you can usually get places efficiently without a map.
I doubt that I've been "lost" more than a couple of dozen times in my life, and I rarely need maps.
I turn on Google Drive for traffic guidance, not directions.
This person's log shows a tremendous deficit in the training of what should be a basic human skill. There are many skills that derive from developing your innate sense of direction and ability to relate a map to where you're at. And I doubt those regions of the brain are very multipurpose. They would be highly developed by evolution. They've given up something that likely didn't free neural resources up for another intelligence gain.
My wife and I grew up using maps, and it's quite natural for us. I often use GPS especially for traveling, but my wife is resistant to using GPS, they steer you into lakes and lead you astray, etc. When I get online directions or use a GPS for long distance travel, I almost always check out the route to see if it makes sense. I often modify my route for a multitude of reasons such as; I know a different route is actually faster, construction I'm aware of, a different route is much more scenic and therefore worth the extra time, I know this route actually doesn't work, a new road not known by the map software and other misc. reasons.
I recently went to a Best Western Hotel in Wisconsin that had been there for over 15 years. When I keyed in the address when I got near by (I used maps to get to the area), the address didn't exist on my GPS and I couldn't find it searching around. The road actually had 3 names, and I knew 2 of them, but neither worked on my GPS. I'm not sure if the one I didn't know would have worked, but I ended up calling the place and getting directions. It was still tricky to find, yet right on a major 2 lane highway.
Following turn by turn directions on a GPS often aren't quick enough to get to the right side of the expressway for an exit in large downtown areas with many exits and moderate traffic.
I hate it when GPS and online instructions tell me to get on a certain road going straight down the expressway, over and over again, when it's the same road I'm on or it combines with another one and no turning is involved. This is why I often transcribe online directions into something one eighth as long as the original.
Ultimately, I never want to be without a GPS and at least a state map if I can help it.
Drove from New York to Texas (1500 miles) without GPS.
I died.
Bright side is I didn't have to live to see the day Popular Mechanics would print crap like TFA.
Having a zoomable map of the entire region trumps paper maps any day, regardless of whether the device is GPS-enabled or not.
Blogger/Reporter admits he is slightly retarded. Too retarded to follow street signs, but not retarded enough to crash his car in the process.
I use to drive the entire country with a 53 ft refer with as many a 50 drops., With only a Rand McNally Deluxe Motor Carriers' Road Atlas.
Everyone grow the fuck up.
Yes, I recently took a long trip with only a Garmin GPS and was frustrated by the times it would take us on some narrow winding road through the mountains that had an official speed limit of 55 mph, yet for most of the way you couldn't even go half that speed due to all the sharp bends in the road. Obviously the GPS's "fast" route was programmed according to the nominal speed limit -- not the actual speed that one could travel on that road. A paper map would surely have shown a better route. This has happened to me more than once.
"It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" - Paris Hilton or someone like that.
This article isn't about GPS being needed, it's a tale of someone who doesn't know how to plan at all who fails at reading and following lines on a page. The author seems totally unfamiliar with what roads are and how directions work. For unknown reasons, he does not take any of the interstates that would get him directly there, and complains about traffic on small roads that go through small towns and larger cities.
I don't know where in North Carolina he was going, but a complete list of directions to get you close enough that you should know the rest of the way from memory is either:
64, 75, 40, 77 (Charlotte area)
or
64,77,74,40 (Raleigh and points east)
All interstates, East on the even numbers, South on the odd numbers. If you can't tell this from looking at a static map, it's not your sense of direction at fault, it's a basic failure to be able to follow a line. If you can't follow the very large signs on an interstate, then you've really got observational problems and shouldn't be driving a car.
Also, in Louisville, where he got on I-264, it wouldn't matter which direction he started going, there would've been an exit for I-64 East either way.
It is not the lack of GPS that is at issue, it's the author's inability to plan at all (buy an atlas? know what an interstate is?), read a map, follow signs, or make decisions. GPS may not have helped him, because it seems equally likely he would've put his destination as North Dakota.
For those fretting over data, Navigon's smartphone app lets you selectively load maps by state so you can have them offline without data usage. They have had it for at least 8 years.
GPS-enabled navigation is great, in moderation, the key is to avoid dependence. It's perfectly fine to use GPS for "last mile" navigation to an unfamiliar place, or to avoid missing turns at night. Where you get in trouble is when you make it part of your routine.
You should never need GPS to get between two major cities. A quick glance at the map should tell you a viable route. Do it often enough, you won't even need the map anymore. Louisville to Raleigh? I-64 east to charleston, wv, I77 south to just south of the VA border, I-74east/US52south around mount airy, continue south to winston salem , I-40 east to raleigh, done. To asheville instead? ok, ok, east on I-64 out of louisville, pick up I-75 at lexington, KY, south to knoxville, east on I-40 to asheville. That's from memory.
Within a city that you live, or spend significant time in, you should strive to know at least the most important streets by memory, and then from there, learn some useful connections between those streets. Once you get used to doing this, you can glance at a map and go "Oh, that's off Emerald Street, by the gas station" and then either study the next few turns after that, or just turn your GPS on when you get close to that point.
Just don't allow the use of GPS to become routine. It's perfectly fine to bring it out when you get lost, it's not ok to always be lost without it.
Seriously, traveling sans GPS is adventurous? You can get a wonderful book of maps at Flying J, or pretty much any real truck stop. If that's no good, there are things called signs that sit alongside the highways telling you how to get where. I've travelled across North America (and Europe) without GPS or maps, relying on signage, without issue. Try putting your brains into gear.
linquendum tondere
I'm from the future, and I'm here to tell you about the Internet. In the future we'll be able to connect with computers everywhere, even in cars. We'll use the Internet to tell stories. Fantastic stories. For example, we'll tell a story about a guy taking a road trip and looking at his map.
"So... in the future, is theater of the absurd popular?".
No. Not on purpose. Now, let me tell you about the President of the United States...
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I drove close to 2 million miles before GPS units were even available. I have one, but I rarely ever look at it except for seeing what the ETA is (and it's wrong more than it's right!). I've spent the last 41 years going to places I've never been before. And by the time I've finished working in a city, I know my way around better than most locals. It's EASY.
You don't need a compass, and topo maps show too much unnecessary crap. The sun always rises in the east and sets in the west. Even-numbered roads generally run east-west and odd-numbered roads generally run north-south. Inside cities learn which way streets and avenues run, either east-west or north-south. Some cities have it ass-backwards.
Exceptions are interstate loops and spurs - 3 digits that start with odd or even numbers. If it starts with an odd number, it's a spur. If it starts with an even number it comes back to the interstate it left (loop).
Oh, and sometimes roads run concurrently, so that you may be on a road that goes by two or more road numbers. Watch the signs - we paid good money for all those signs.
Paper road maps are still available in stores near interstates. If you travel a lot, buy an atlas of all the state road maps.
Outside of cities learn and use the 9-1-1 system to find addresses. Again, most did it right, but some counties royally screwed it up.
In 1995 I drove 3,000 miles, from CA to FL, all alone, with no problem. In 1996 I drove back. My magical method:
1. Get paper maps BEFORE leaving.
2. Look at maps.
3. Drive.
4. When needed, call people (before leaving!) and ask how to get to their house from the highway.
It was tough, what with the long-distance phone charges and the dinosaurs occasionally blocking I-10, but other than that it was pretty uneventful.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
years ago.
In fact I didn't even use maps. I had AAA guidebooks in case I needed to find motels and otherwise just followed the interstates. 5 means nominally N/S, and 0 means West/East. I had to backtrack or follow another route a few times, but even with that, I came in below my cost estimates until 3/4 of the way back (when I realized I was 3000 miles away from anybody who could help me out and everybody I'd tried to visit on the other coast made excuses/bailed on me. Of the two that didn't, one was an underage chronic alcoholic, and the other was a socially ackward cock blocker who made me regret my decision not to bail on him and go with the cute college girls we'd met when he chickened out on asking them to ice cream with me!
I've been told that some people go outside in bare feet without a cellphone. How silly can you get?
(||) Nehmo (||)
I like maps but I don't want to use them when:
- map is dirty / itchy
- no map
- in a hurry
Also, I can say for sure that gps and a couple of maps apps saved my butt when traveling for business in Shanghai. However, it was very difficult to align where I was on a paper map based on the app, even when taking a while to plot individual points. I supplemented it by poring over barely understood road signs and bus route signs.
In the end I found the best way to map the neighborhood of my hotel (endless walks down mysterious roads to get from hotel to a shopping area) was to find a number of points and plot them on the paper map, then after repeated difficulties to finally draw my own version in a little notebook with the key names in two languages.
GPS's are as you say just thinking of speed limits. They also do not seem very good at factoring in number of lights, difficulty of turns, or (and this really galls me with Google maps and most others) future traffic buildup. If I leave somewhere at 4:30, I'm pretty much always going to be routed onto a highway that is going to take me ~10min longer than the estimate. Just because it can route me around buildups is no excuse for not simply choosing a smarter route to begin with!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
US-32 apparently doesn't exist, anymore, but it certainly never passed through Louisville
Umm. Call me a modernist, lazy, whatever.
But reading the story exerpt gave me a 'Yep. Still as bad as I remembered'. If I have to drive randomly without any concept where I am or of time I'm not happy. That was the case before the arrival of the GPS (yes, I'm that old) and it still is the case.
So I'll use the GPS whenever I can, thank you very much!
I usually use GPS at the start of the day to plan out my trip. I write down and try to memorize the major steps and their distances on a piece of paper and then I go. Occasionally I will pull out the phone if I think I have passed something, but it is a real pain to pull over take off gloves and turn on GPS to verify where I am. When I get to my destination I usually have a much better idea of where I am than if I had arrived using GPS exclusively.
It frustrates me to no end to drive with somebody who will guaranteed miss an exit unless GPS is on. You tell them "In 10 miles take the exit for this town. 30 min later they are still driving on the same road oblivious that they have passed the exit."
"I begin downtown, by the river. It seems that if I get on 32 East, I can find Route 150 toward Tennessee. It takes about one block for my plan to fall apart. The street I'm on dead-ends and forces me onto a seemingly parallel road that soon wanders off at an angle. I discover that there's the fancy, Kentucky Derby side of Louisville, but also the Thorobred Lounge gentleman's club side. Somehow, I blunder onto Interstate 264, a ring road, where the exit numbers indicate that I'm at least ten miles from where I thought I was. And yet, it works out. See, this is the way you used to do it. You keep driving. I exit for Route 32 and settle in for a long drive east."
- There are about 40 gazillion "To I-xxx" signs downtown (I-64, I-65, I-264, I-265). The fact that the author seems unaware of I-264 as the Watterson Expressway and US-31E/US-150 as Bardstown Road makes me think that either said author just moved to Louisville (within the past 2 weeks) or is making up stuff as justification for the article. It's drivers like this that make the streets, roads, and highways dangerous for everyone else - doing the Jersey Slide trying to make a exit they're going to miss 'cause they're lost and so on. Louisville has 2 ring roads & 2.5 through interstates (I-71 ends in downtown) and is laid out in a very reasonable way given the age of the city.
If you're not going to use your GPS, then you're either A:) Lost or B:) On your way to AAA to pick up the PAPER MAPS that still exist.
Not a member? This is one more excellent reason to become one.
Also: Even if you DO have a GPS, I always have a set of AAA maps in the car just in case my GPS breaks AND my cell phone battery dies.
If you refuse to carry paper maps and you don't want to use a GPS, then you deserve to get lost.
So, before I start, I am 57, my fiancée is 31.
On almost every road trip we go on, she insists we use the GPS. So, I happily input the address to where we want to go, then set it up on the dash so we can follow it, dutifully. However, before we started, I pulled out the map (either digital or dead tree) and look up where we want to go, looking through the route, doing what we used to call a 'map recon' when I was a soldier.
So, then we get in the car and wherever the GPS tells us to go the wrong way (which it does with alarming regularity!) I go the right way and at first the fiancée and the GPS argue with me, then the GPS says 'recalculating...' and the fiancée, well, she trusts me.
We get where we are going, within the time set by the number of miles divided by the average speed, and the fiancée is happy.
Sometimes, when she is alone, driving across country to visit her family without me, she calls me on her cell to ask for help because she dutifully followed the GPS and now nothing looks right and she is WAY off the timeframe she thought it should take... And I pull out google maps on the laptop or that old atlas of mine. Then I tell her how to get back to where she needs to be, sometimes staying on the phone and telling her where to go at each turn even.
GPS is awesome technology. I love it. But like all technology it is not always perfect and you need to be prepared to navigate yourself. I still know how to use a map and compass, tell time by the sun, etc. Being an old guy, those things are second nature to me.
And more importantly, my fiancée thinks I am a GOD of Travel because no matter what sticky wicket she gets into, I am the cool voice of reason that gets her out of it.
Hey, you want a paper map? Print it off of Google. I'm not sure which part of this is funniest - young guy discovers maps (something even Columbus knew about) or that there's a picture of him asking a woman for directions at the top of the page--like any man every did that (at least according to women).
Since I don't want to see their ads, I didn't read the original.
But: did he even plan the trip with a current map?
I don't own a GPS, nor does my flip-phone do apps. I do have maps, and map books. And the number of times I've gotten lost, driving across the city or across the country, I can count on the fingers of one hand, and have fingers left over.
He's an idiot.
news at 11.
I remember using the AAA TripTik when I was a kid. Mom would have one printed before our long vacation drives - very useful map. Each was very fresh and contained construction notes, detours, and other information.
But in the end - the giant paper map was always consulted for the big picture.
I still use the paper map even with my GPS. GPS gets me there when I know where I want to go --- but the map lets me strategize and change my plans.
Columbus found the new world. Without GPS or maps.
By the Golly! tone of the OP, Columbus did it by performing a Random Walk (Sail?) on the ocean until he hit land...
State welcome centers, located usually at first rest area when you enter a state, usually have free maps.
Eratosthenes accomplishment in calculating the circumference of the Earth was remarkable. He did it with a basic set of assumptions, just a few data points and logic.
However his accuracy was more likely 10-16% off from true values. The closest I was able to get anyone crediting him for, and this was explicitly at the lowest end of a quoted range of accuracies, was 1%.
So 0.16% off? No, Eratosthenes had no way of achieving that level of accuracy. That in no way diminishes his accomplishment.
They used to have these things called Maps. This is actually a more effective way of seeing the place you are visiting.