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Quote: Originally posted by Miss Finaiglesteen on 28/9/2011

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Anyone who relies on satnavs is a fool.... don't be so bone idle and use a map!!

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A girl after my own heart!

When I was with my ex I always acted as navigator using a map book, then a few years ago I got a satnav so I would be able to have a snooze on long journeys - and it was the most stupid usless thing I've ever bought. I'm sure it must have been made in Australia as all the directions were the wrong way round - right instead of left and vice versa. It couldn't even navigate us home from my mother's and that was only a mile away, and if we'd taken any notice of it on one occasion we would have gone the wrong way down the M61! So I got rid of it and reverted to the map book and I've never had any problems since.

If I'm going on a really long journey I plan my route beforehand using the map book, write it on a post-it note and stick it on the dash where I can glance at it when necessary - and that system has never let me down yet.

Satnav? Use a map book and some common sense!

We bought a satnav just for our trip to France, can't fault it to be honest, following the lane assist took us through Paris and south to La Souterraine without any problems. It also took us further south to our campsite and straight to the reception.

My only gripe with it is that it always takes you back on different route than you go out on for some reason. Leaving our friends house at Chabanette it took us on a 3 mile detour around country lanes to get to the main road to La Soutteraine and they only live about 400m from the main road junction nearest to them. It also took us via Lille to go back to Dunkirk, it could only find the commercial port and Dunkirk port is massive so we followed the signs to the car ferry and got there in plenty of time. It couldn't find the road our campsite was on so we navigated to a street nearby it could find, but when we were there and went out somewhere it found that particular road without any problems.

Overall its a good piece of kit and worth its money, I can't understand why so many people have them on their cars the whole time now in the UK, I never remember seeing loads of people reading maps the whole time!! We only use it for obscure places we never go to, mostly places in this country are well sign posted and enough to get you there or nearby.

Thank You

aapiper

Quote: Originally posted by Miss Finaiglesteen on 28/9/2011

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Anyone who relies on satnavs is a fool.... don't be so bone idle and use a map!!

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That's what they used to say when maps first came out - 'don't be so lazy, use your compass'

It's called 'progress'...

I dont know about lazy but I spend the winter programming my satnav with the entire route, there and back, and every possible place we could want to visit or stop at when we are there. I also program it with loo and picnic stops en route and where we want to shop when we are there. Then we just switch it on and let it do its thing. It probably helps that we have done the same routes in France for donkeys years using maps and would know if it took us wrong otherwise we just put ourselves in the satnavs hands and go where it takes us.

Carol

We use a sat nav that we bought from LIDL about 4 years ago when they had it as on e of their "Thursday Specials" and can't fault it. It only cost about £70 and has loads of features (like lane assist) that seem to cost a lot more on other brands.

One of the features we've found most useful it  that it knows the location of every LIDL store in Europe !

Whilst we still rely on a road map for the city to city part of long journeys (Ali is a dab hand at mapreading - much though it pains me to admit it!) the sat nav (we call it Simon after the name of the voice in the English language selection) is invaluable for navigating in cities. We used it to find a hotel in Amsterdam a couple of years ago - I think we'd probably still be driving round looking for it now if we hadn't had Simon to help us.

Rod

Satnavs are excellent if used in conjunction with common sense! Good for finding streets in towns.

We have a Garmin Nuvi with European mapping which is excellent, it has POIs on it which include campsites but they can take you on narrow roads!

We bought a preloadaed memory card from Garmin for North America (just slots in the side)which we used in Canada this summer. It was good, used it to find a couple of campsites! Reasonable price too.

Quote: Originally posted by happybonzo on 13/10/2011

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Regarding vehicles with built in SatNavs: How does one go about updating them? I don't have one but do you have to go to the dealer for them to do the job for you - at a price...

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Mine has a Europe wide DVD that you can upgrade. Depends on what sort of system it is really. Not the cheapest options unfortunately but will probably only update every 3 years or so

As above though many seem to follow their sat navs blindly (even when they know the road is only a mile in that direction for instance above!) You can follow your own route - the sat nav is only a guide not ciompulsory!!