On not taking GPS/SatNav

The idea for this trip has been several years in the making, beginning with the hope that it could serve as a follow up to our tour through Asia. We envisioned an American style road trip (whatever exactly that means), drifting from town to town along the Mediterranean coast, windows down, warm weather, wind in our hair; you know, that kind of thing. Anyway, in our shared vision of this trip a central part of the whole ordeal is a map.
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Shortly before Megan left Amsterdam at the beginning of our trip, her kindly cousin offered us the use of her GPS. It was a tempting and generous offer but one we felt obligated to decline because it would go against the nature of what we wanted our trip to be. The trip, we thought, should be a confusing venture, there should be detours, wrong turns, and having to stop and ask for directions. It should be a little painful; there is something to be said about navigating the roads ourselves. And besides, some of those side towns and out of the way places are exactly where we wanted to end up. This is to say nothing of our culture's incredible attachment to the Internet and connectivity. We felt that surely an adventure like this deserved to be done in the ways of our predecessors, no gadgets, nothing telling us which way to go (and to some extent what to do); just us, a rather poor map, and the good ol' Saxo.

And in the end, we are both still happy with our decision. It certainly did lead to more squabbling at times. Marital strife was running high as we got lost in dense and dirty Athens, for example, but we are glad we found our way as we went. We liked those moment when we discovered we were obviously not supposed to have turned down that road half a mile back and the following actions of staring at the map, debating, staring some more, and then going and asking the sheep herder for directions.

Albania was rife with these moments and was a great example of the pleasure gained when we simply stopped and asked someone for directions. You get an amazing response when you step out of your car with your (poor quality) map, asking about a town you can barely pronounce, all the while hoping you are on the right road based on the one sign you saw 23 miles ago. We were always impressed with and grateful for people's generosity in helping (and their surprising versatility in English) and left all the encounters feeling better about humanity.

So in the end we stand by our decision not to take GPS/SatNav, though there were times we kicked ourselves for not having it. It may not be the best thing for a relationship, but it does add a layer of authenticity and real interaction to the trip.