If you're using GPS properly, then you're using it as an assistant, not as a boss. The two strategies are very different and will totally affect the way you navigate: either you're relying on your GPS too much or you still have the sense of navigation that you always have had.
Like a math teacher who gets upset when students use calculators instead of their heads or instead of paper and pencil, this article is going to tell you why it's a bad idea to rely on your GPS as your only method of navigation. You might think we're acting like old folks here, but we might be able to offer you the kind of tips that will help you better use your GPS in ways you never thought possible. So let's get to it.
It's Your Fault for Getting Lost
In America, there was an older couple that got lost while using a GPS device: the United States Air Force reported that it wasn't due to a bad GPS signal. The GPS signal was working just fine and the couple still got lost. So what gives? This is like someone using a calculator and getting the wrong number back.
What's going on her is an over-reliance on GPS systems at the expense of one's own common sense. If you abandon your own sense of direction and your own common sense, then the GPS device can't take you back to sanity: that one doesn't show up on the map. If you recognize that a road - simply by looking at visually - is not what the GPS map says it is, then you should have the good sense not to turn on the road if you know of a better alternative. With the GPS ability to "recalibrate" its directions after you go off course, you should have no problem defying its instructions every once in a while.
Sometimes, "recalibrating" your directions will just mean that GPS device is trying to turn you around to where you originally were supposed to go. But if you go far enough, the GPS system may just re-calibrate your journey to compensate for the new choice in road you've made. You can essentially guide your GPS into thinking more like you.
This is what you want; not the other way around. You don't want to have the GPS guide your thinking: you simply want it to guide your navigating. And while a "guide" can help steer you in the right direction, you don't have to follow orders blindly.
Don't Deny Your Intuition
Human intuition when it comes to navigation can still have its moments, so don't give up on your own brain. It can do some things the GPS cannot, including observe your environment and recognize when the weather is too precarious for a journey, for example. The GPS device, as good as it is, is not the decision-maker in the car: you are. You still have to keep those decision-making abilities strong, and this means exercising them on a regular basis. If your GPS wants to take a road you don't think will work as well as your own path, then let the GPS cater to your course, not the other way around.
You shouldn't trust your intuition blindly, either: you should use all of the elements at your disposal in order to make the best educated decisions about big questions - from the general route to take - to smaller questions, including whether or not you want to take a small side trip through a town.
When you're using GPS systems responsibly, you can really use them for excellent navigation even in unknown territory. But when your GPS is making all the decisions, the gap between map and reality becomes that much more apparent. Don't let the GPS device take over: stay in command of your car.