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Comment by epsteingpt | Hacker News Reader

Getting lost isn't fun. I resent the people who say so.

In many places in the world, a missed exit on a freeway can take you 20-30 minutes or more from your destination, with no chance of turning around.

There is an art to wandering, for sure, but this luddite paean to wandering neglects the fact that for most of human history, one of the largest drivers of technology was navigation technology to AVOID getting lost on purpose.

This is projected metaphysical angst masquerading as nostalgia.

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Getting lost when you have time and a full tank of gas is fun.

Getting lost when you need to be someone on time is awful.

We can love the former and hate the latter.

I drove from Alaska to Argentina with no GPS, phone, or and kind of digital maps. I had no timeline, so I was always “lost” to some degree.

I throughly enjoyed following my nose 99% of the time. Navigating in Central America and rural parts of South was easy. Stopping to ask directions lead to the best street food, hidden beaches and random stuff ( going to weddings, etc). It really helped me learn Spanish too. It’s always worth remembering drivers did this for 100 years, and walkers and horse riders for many, many thousands. GPS is pretty new.

Getting out of the mega cities in South America was not fun, and overshadowed the romantic aspect of the no gps thing. I spent 4 hours trying to get out of Quito. Multiple police pointed in different directions, etc.

I was under the impression that there was a gap between Panama and Ecuador that made that trip impossible by road. How did you make that leg?

I put my vehicle in a shipping container and shipped it from colon in Panama to Cartegena in Colombia. Total cost was $777, took 5 days.

I considered that trip myself a long time ago but never made it. I was fascinated with Cartagena when I was a kid.

Do it. Thousands do every year now. I met a couple on their mid 60s, people with kids, dogs, cats and all the rest.

Life changing adventure and the all-in price was $27k for 2 years of doing exactly what I wanted everyday.

Honestly, what I dislike is everyone else also having GPS/etc. Which is to say, I don't want them getting lost, per se, at least not on purpose, but the idea of anyone living at all that way again is mostly gone. Ironically, the very technology which signified a certain degree of wealth in the early 90s (cellular phones) provided the connectivity to provide the least wealthy access to the internet that was not possible when most internet access was available only through wired connection or satellite. Which isn't a complaint about wealth, at all.... more saying you are more likely to be able to be tracked down to your exact precise location in many slums or beach towns than some offramp with none of those things you were looking for (food, etc). Most of the little places I went to in Central America were long ago reviewed to death on places like Yelp and replaced with pricier places created for places like Yelp.

Just go further off the known routes and you’ll find the good stuff where others have not been.

I’ve never used yelp in my life.

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