In a recent Mail Call (February 2019), GT associate editor and copy editor Patty Vanikiotis sought advice on renting a car and taking an extensive road trip in Spain and Portugal this fall.

Tie that to the upcoming National Read a Road Map Day — one of those “official” national celebratory days, observed each year on April 5 — and it got me thinking about how we navigate the world.

When is the last time you took out a printed map to find your way on a trip? With the advent of GPS and mobile phone apps, we’ve come to rely on satellite navigation and digital devices to get us where we need to go.

I’m not anti-GPS by any means. It’s incredibly convenient when you don’t want to get lost on your way to an important appointment. Usually following the navigational voice and digital map will take you on the shortest route between two points, and even warn you of traffic snarls and accidents, highway construction and detours.

But what happens if you suddenly lose the signal, or the device is inaccurate or malfunctions? Would you know where you are and be able to find your way?

Many drivers on the road today never experienced navigating by printed map, relying only on the voice coming out of the GPS system dictating left and right turns (and the occasional “U-turn at your earliest convenience”). I wonder if they have a sense of direction without it.

Navigation is an innate human skill, not just a follow-along activity — use it or lose it! There is evidence drivers who blindly follow directions by GPS alone have more trouble remembering where they’ve been or what routes they’ve taken than those who read road maps. They tend to be less observant of landmarks along the way.

That narrow image of “you are here” on your little digital screen does not give you the big picture of where you are in the world.

My family took a lot of road trips when I was a child. I remember the thrill of my dad unfolding a paper map and spreading it out on the kitchen table as he plotted our route. I could see the entire state or region, and get a sense of the vast distance between home and our destination. We seemed to encounter road construction wherever we went, and often had to follow a detour. My dad would pull over to the side of the road, take out the map and find an alternate route, often discovering some interesting sights along the way.

My husband and I have taken plenty of road trips — with and without GPS — but I have to say one of the most memorable was a self-drive tour of Ireland. This was some years ago, before GPS devices were available in rental cars. We also did not have smartphones yet. Armed with an official road map showing the major primary and secondary roads of the country, we headed out from Ennis to see the Cliffs of Moher. About halfway, we encountered road construction (the family curse!). This was a route with one lane in each direction, and instead of repaving one side of the road at a time and allowing traffic to continue along the route, the crew was paving the entire width of the road for miles. We were directed to turn off onto a narrow road as a detour. The only instructions were “ to follow this road around to the other side.”

We followed a few detour signs, but as we approached a first T-stop, there was no sign. Instinct told us to turn left in order to continue heading northwest. Our map showed the first detour road off the main highway, but did not indicate any of the small local roads. I rummaged through our folder of travel information and found the hand-drawn photocopied map of local roads I picked up at our B&B on a whim, thinking it was a quaint souvenir.

Each road seemed to be narrower than the last, eventually becoming so small two cars could not pass, requiring one to back up to a sidetrack to allow the other to pass. To add to the dilemma, the squiggly lines on the map did not have road names or numbers. But that was a moot point, since the actual roads we followed had no road signs, either. Eventually we ended up on what was a path of two tire tracks through a field. After an hour of twists and turns, we made our way back to the main highway, about three miles down the road.

Would GPS have helped? Possibly. But we would have missed the adventure of finding our own way, turning the map as we made each turn, and trying to figure out if that curve on the paper was the turn we actually just took. And it made what would have been an ordinary trip to a tourist attraction much more memorable.

Reading a road map hones our navigational skills and sense of direction while helping us observe and connect with places along the way. By all means, use GPS when available, but don’t miss an opportunity to navigate yourself once in a while. Knowing how to use a map instead of an app, you become your own back-up system. Even the U.S. Navy still teaches celestial navigation as a back-up skill!

— Jan Hecht, senior editor