Now I Am A Sat Nav Convert
I guess like many parents of grown up
children, my own started to use satellite navigation devices to get
around. My initial reaction was, why pay so much when the old
fashioned maps give all the information you need. Plus, I thought,
and still do, that young adults will not learn the skills of map
reading and in consequence have little idea geographically of where
they are going or where they end up. This was born out to some extent
when I asked my sons on a recent visit, what route they took e.g M25,
A12 etc. The reply was that they really didn't know as they just
followed the directions spoken to them from the Sat Nav. Aha I
thought smugly, these new devices are not so good after all, as when,
rather than if, they break down, you won't be able to find your way.
That said, however, my wife and I were
planning a trip to Salzburg to visit a friend and we would need to
hire a car from the airport to get to Schliersee in Germany where she
lived. Hire car companies charge around £50 extra for use of a
satellite navigation so having discovered you can buy one from around
the same price, I decided to bite the bullet and get our own. So I
ordered an RAC 300E Sat Nav with Western Europe maps through Amazon
for £49.99. A few days later our Sat Nav arrived and after a little
setting up and playing around, I found it really simple to operate.
Before our trip to Europe we used it for several trips in the UK and
were surprised at the routes it took us, saving us many miles and
consequent petrol costs on just usual routes. In fact it pretty much
paid for itself in the first few weeks.
Our trip to Europe also proved most
successful and 'Brenda' as we came to call our Sat Nav performed
brilliantly. The journey from Salzburg Airport to Schliersee was very
easy, just following 'Brenda's' directions. Once there we wanted to
visit some of the 'Sound Of Music' film locations and 'Brenda'
directed us to everything we wanted to see, saving a good deal on a
tourist coach trip with the added advantage of doing things at our
own speed. Interestingly enough, Salzburg does not provide very clear
signs to many of the Sound Of Music locations but a visit to a
tourist information centre gave us the location details to load into
our Sat Nav and 'Brenda' did the rest. I guess Salzburg really wants
people to go on the guided tourist trips rather than wandering about
on your own, which is fair enough.
Following our little European adventure
we took my mother to Wales for a little holiday. Once more 'Brenda'
performed really well. The clear voice instructions are excellent but
you do have to apply a little common sense when sometimes very
narrow, single lane roads are used to direct you. For us this added
to the fun and adventure but may frustrate others. Overall, we would
not be without our Sat Nav now.
