I do the “key towns and cities” thing anyway, because I frequently disagree with the routing algorithms in all satnavs: being predominantly US based they score major numbered roads far more highly than minors, which in the UK and lots of europe means they send you straight down the “high street” of every place you visit. This is of course, now the slowest route, not the fastest – but the software disagrees.

Now that the Garmin can be loaded with data from Google Maps, I have the best of both worlds – though not of course while it is crashed!

I drove from Southampton, over Hannover to München, another time I had a great time in Tirol, riding all over the place with no maps at all on my motorbike. For the trip to Hannover and down to München, I looked at a map before leaving the house and wrote the key towns and cities I would pass on Post-It notes, which sat in my tand bag.

My Mondeo has a navisystem built in, but to be honest, I think I’ve used it twice in the last 20,000KM…

I think that things like navisystems turn drivers into zombies, unable to think for themselves. I have a friend, who uses his navi to get him everywhere. Even driving to the next town now requires the navi, but he has been driving there for over a decade without!

A man was rescued last week, when he drove onto a frozen river, because he had followed his navi without regarding his surroundings and failed to notice, that because the river was frozen, the ferry wasn’t running, so he just carried on. :-S