I can't bring myself to buy a GPS unit. Partly because it's hard for me to understand the words "left" and "right." Not the concepts, just the words, which I never learned as a child, and can only rcall with mnemonics. So verbal directions confuse and delay me.
Truth be told, I can't make sense of verbal directions (over the phone, for instance) without a map in front of me. And I envy cultures where people specify even small, household, directions by north, south, east, and west.
But the big reason I won't buy a GPS is because all the units I see present the landscape in a "bird's eye" perspective view, instead of as a map. I find that presentation insulting, like a visual baby-talk, as if I weren't adult enough to use a real map.
But I do love Google maps, and often download multiple views of a destination at different scales.
In fact, to the extend that I can learn my students' names, I learn to associate the name with a geographical location in the room before I connect a face with them.
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Truth be told, I can't make sense of verbal directions (over the phone, for instance) without a map in front of me. And I envy cultures where people specify even small, household, directions by north, south, east, and west.
But the big reason I won't buy a GPS is because all the units I see present the landscape in a "bird's eye" perspective view, instead of as a map. I find that presentation insulting, like a visual baby-talk, as if I weren't adult enough to use a real map.
But I do love Google maps, and often download multiple views of a destination at different scales.
In fact, to the extend that I can learn my students' names, I learn to associate the name with a geographical location in the room before I connect a face with them.
Maps are good.