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Comment by abnry | Hacker News Reader

I enjoy navigating without gps. I can always memorize most of the way there as it is usually just following main roads. It is the last portion that can be hardest. I like to think of directions in terms of "topological complexity". If it is just off a highway or off of a road off the highway it is easy to navigate to. Has nothing to do with how far away it is or how familiar I am with the area.

Similar to this is the fact that it is always easier to navigate home than to a new place. In the former, you are aiming for the web of roads that you recognize. In the latter, it is a specific point.

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I’m more the opposite - I spent decades driving without GPS, and I got to see very little of where I went because I’m trying to read a map or atlas, not crash into anyone, and cross six lanes of traffic because the exit is on the opposite side of the highway. I drove the equivalent of twelve times around the equator and it was all a blur. With GPS I can actually look beyond the car in front of me and enjoy seeing what I am driving through. In recent years I’ve started setting the Avoid Highways feature and taking back roads everywhere - no traffic, no cops, no people driving crazy, lots of wildlife, lots of sights, cheap gas, etc. generally only adds an hour to my travel time.

I agree on all points. I remember driving from Paris to Epinal using printed out directions. At some point after the 15 roundabout we had no idea where we were. Luckily we were are to speak with some nice people to help guide us the rest of the way, but we almost missed the time we had to be at our destination.

To be fair French deep-country roundabouts are the work of the devil. Me and my SO did a cross-European car-journey a few years ago and we managed to get all the way from Bucharest to France just fine without using any GPS.

And then we got into the French roundabouts. I gave up close to Orleans. We wanted to get off the highway and use a smaller road, for sightseeing, it's only that I literally re-created this infamous scene [1] with the only difference that there were 3 or 4 roundabouts in quick succession involved, not a big one. I almost had tears of frustration, I'm not exaggerating, but thanks to my SO who started co-piloting me with "take the second exit in the next roundabout" and stuff like that we managed to get out of it all. After a few days driving through France I think I managed to get the hang of those roundabouts without using GPS, but it wasn't easy.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAgX6qlJEMc

Haha...exactly!

Another fun one from a different trip. We were in a French town that had an underground parking garage. We enter the garage, it's packed with cars and we think 'great, we'll be here a few days and won't need the car'. A few days later is a Sunday and we head over to the garage to leave and...the whole garage is sealed up like a bomb shelter. It's closed on Sundays. I had never seen this in a US garage b/c normally if they closed at all they would just open the gates.

After walking around a bit, I was able to translate enough French to find a call button. 20 minutes later I managed to get an attendant to come let me out. The garage looked like something from a zombie movie - pitch black dark and 1 or 2 cars left.

I always check the times on parking garages now.

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