Turn off the GPS? Am I insane? Am I some anti-technology diehard? I’m not denying that the GPS is a great travel tool that I often use, but there are times when you should shut it off and look at an old-fashioned map instead. Or, look just look at the map on your GPS, if you can’t handle shutting off your device. Here’s why:
1. The GPS doesn’t always know the best route.
Sure, it’ll get you to your destination, there’s no denying that. But even if your GPS or GPS app considers traffic, it doesn’t always mean that it’ll take you the easiest way. It may lead you through a complicated downtown area when an easier path through neighborhoods would have been just as good.
My GPS once lead me through a seedy part of Hartford, CT at night, and I’ve heard horror stories from friends who got stuck in downtown Boston or Manhattan when neither place was a destination. Another friend ended up going down a lonely, dirt road in the middle of a state forest just because the GPS told him to go that way. It’s just not worth it.
2. You could get to the wrong place.
For this point, I’ll have to pick on my friends and family. When my wife and I got married, we told everyone what church to go to. We gave them the address, and we even wrote out the directions, step by step, on the back of our invitations.
Easy enough, right? Nope.
We had friends and family who almost showed up late. Why? Instead of reading the instructions, they simply typed in the name of our church, “Holy Trinity,” into their GPS’s.
Their GPS’s did bring them to Holy Trinity in the right city, but it brought them to a different Holy Trinity of another Christian denomination. They sat in the parking lot of this wrong place and wondered where everyone else was. Needless to say, they were almost late to the ceremony.
They were a bit more careful when following the directions to our reception.
3. It limits your exploring the backroads.
In my area of the world, back roads have a lot to offer. There’s scenery, farms, ice cream and antique shops, clam shacks, and other random oddities that you can only find in New England.
The problem with the GPS is that it doesn’t care about these off-the-beaten path places. It’s job is to get you from point A to point B; it doesn’t care if you randomly pass these ice cream shops along the way. (Yes, you could program it to go to these places, but that takes the “last minute decision” and “We discovered this spot!” fun out of your road trip.)
Chances are that if you listen only to your GPS, you’ll never go by these local points of interest, and you’ll miss out on exploring new and fun places.
4. Is this really up to date? Yes, we’re including apps, too.
Some of us know that our old, box-like GPS’s are out of date (that would be me). And some of us have friends who insist that these people need to update or use their phones instead (those people are talking to me).
But the reality is that even if you use a well-known app on your phone, the map could be out of date. Cities change traffic patterns often. Here are some examples:
- That two-way street was just turned into a one-way.
- Construction has you following a detour, and your GPS is going insane.
- Your app is telling you to turn left, but there are two visible “no left turn” signs, along with three traffic cameras at an intersection.
- The GPS wants you to go down a paper street. This is a street that is technically on the books, but doesn’t exist. This would-be street is city property, but the city has never done anything with it. You’ll find yourself driving straight until you see woods, and your GPS will urge you to continue through the trees. As far as it’s concerned, you’re on a road.
So, no, I’m not crazy, nor am I a tech-basher. There are times you’re better off looking at a map, choosing your own path, and powering down your gadgets.
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Did I miss any reasons why you should shut off your GPS? What do you think?
[…] After a two-hour drive, during which we stopped once for lunch and other multiple times so that Benny could use the restroom, we were finally approaching Royalston. I wasn’t sure if we had crossed the town line, so I thought I would be cool and use the voice activation feature on my GPS and ask where we were. The GPS, thwarting my plans to look like a techie hot shot, told us that we were still in Leominster, which was 40 minutes away. I sighed audibly. My well-known map app never works right. I have should listened to my own advice on why you should just shut off the GPS. […]