Blake Schwendiman's Blog and Blook

A long time ago I wrote a blog entry about vacationing, driving and GPS. At the time I didn't have any practical experience using a GPS navigation system. This time I do.

From July 4th to July 15th, my family and I were vacationing on the east coast and having an incredible time. We flew to Manhattan, stayed a few days, then rented a car and took it to the beach in New Jersey for a week of sun and fun, then drove to Philadelphia to round out the trip.

I've been to Manhattan and the beach house before, but I've never been to Philly and I've driven very little in any of the three. For this trip I decided to give a GPS navigation system from TripGadgets.com a try. We had to make a few extra stops on this trip and I'm not really very patient with maps (ask my wife), so I hoped a navigation system would be the right solution. It definitely was.

To be honest, I was a little tentative about the navigation system concept. I was concerned about coverage and resolution -- basically I was worried that it might not work everywhere I wanted to go and it wouldn't show all of the little roads I would be travelling on (particularly in Beach Haven, NJ). I received the device the day before we got on the plane and was pleasantly surprised to learn how simple a navigation system is to use. Turn it on, pick a destination (more on that later) and click OK and it just starts working.

Picking destinations is surprisingly easy. Start by entering a Zip code or city name. Then you will be prompted for a street name. Finally you will be prompted for a street number. That's it. Once you have programmed an address, you can save it to an address book for easy recall later. The night before our trip, I programmed all of the addresses: Sam's Club in Secaucus, NJ, the Newark Airport, the beach house in Beach Haven, the Marriott in Philly and the Philadelphia airport. Then I turned the thing off, packed it in my suitcase and forgot about it for a few days.

In Manhattan, I rented my car, plugged in the navigation device and selected my first destination (Sam's Club). At this point I must mention the first caveat of using a GPS navigation system: it takes a little bit of time for the device to "lock on" to your current location. When I first turned on the device, it still thought I was in Arizona at home. That was the last place it was when it still had a GPS signal. I asked the rental car attendant for brief instructions toward New Jersey so I had a general bearing before I left. After driving for a little less than 1/4 mile, the GPS figured out exactly where I was and started giving me meaningful directions. Unfortunately I had already taken a couple of wrong turns and was starting to get a little freaked out. When it finally kicked it, though, it took me right to the Sam's Club store in spite of several mistakes on my part. Each time I made a wrong turn, it recalculated a new route and gave me new instructions.

The second caveat should seem fairly obvious to most people, but it's worth mentioning. The navigation system will get you to the address, but it can't possibly tell you exactly where to park. This happened when we arrived in Philadelphia. The Marriott's address is on Market Street, but the parking and entrance are on the back of the building. Obviously the GPS couldn't possibly know that, so it took me to a point right in front of the Marriott and we had to find our way to the parking and entrance ourselves -- a tiny price to pay for so much functionality and peace of mind.

So, after having experienced travelling with a GPS navigation system, I'm sold. I still don't see a great need to own one where I live and with my current work schedule, but I'd definitely rent one from TripGadgets.com in the future for my next trip. The great thing about the rental service is that the device comes completely ready to go. There's no setup or downloading or anything. Just plug it in and go. It really made our trip a piece of cake.