Why Navigation is a Good Thing


So our trip to Pennsylvania Dutch country was a successful test of our longer vacation yet to come and the first outing for the new mini-van. I've had navigation on the last two Acura's I've had and have learned to rely on it to get me to golf courses and other new destinations but the last van didn't have it. The trip to Hershey was the first time I left the metro area with navigation and the kids and I must say, it was a relief.

First of all, I love the ability to not have to plan routes so carefully in advance and the ability to watch the progress of the trip in real time. You can easily spot the next gas station, restaurant or way side rest without worrying how far the next stop will be if you go past this one. But the best part of navigation is the release of navigation stress. Yes, relying on technology to free your mind from worrying where to turn next or constantly checking your map to see if you were suppose to go through a particular town or not. It's technology at it's best when the technology takes away stress and lets you take in the scenery or listen to your children in the back seat as they see new things.

After the Strasburg Railway stop on Saturday, we started home to Virginia. I came up Interstate 83 to get to the are and assumed we would go back that way. I told the system to go back home to Alexandria and it came with another plan, one that would take us through more Amish country and to the shores of the Susquehanna River (or as Dylan and Sam say it, Susquemomma) and over to Interstate 95. Pennsylvania roads do not go north, south, east or west. They go all sorts of diagonal ways that would have had me checking the map constantly, either while I was driving or pulling off the road. It was beautiful countryside and I would have missed a lot worrying about the right turn to take or if I would have just gotten us back to 83 and headed south. I simply let the car tell me what to do and talked with Dylan and Sam about the scenery or with Nicole when the boys started watching a movie.

The system would talk with me about a mile before I had to do something and I had the visual queue in front of me at all times which reassured me I was doing the right thing. The end result was seeing a whole new part of Pennsylvania and being much less stressed during the trip. I highly recommend navigation to traveling families. New routes, no wrong turns, no arguments about wrong turns, more time to enjoy the ride. Take a map just in case...