Is GPS worthwhile in Ireland

Ro · Member

Is GPS worthwhile in Ireland

Michele Erdvig · Host

Ro,

I have not used it. I read the report on the website you posted and it sounds pretty accurate. Ireland is really not that difficult to find your way around especially if one person is the navigator and the other is the driver. The secret is that you must know the names of the towns and cities along your route. For instance, let's say you are going from Shannon to Killarney. For a while you are on the Cork road. That might be confusing until you look at the map and see that if you follow that road to the very end it goes to Cork. Sure you are not going there (you will branch off to another road shortly) but by knowing the names of places past where you are going makes it understandable. A compass is also very handy.

Michele

China Cat · Veteran Member

we thought about getting a gps then decided against. We took the Ordnance survey map book, plus I printed out directions for the main legs of our trip (town to town) using aaroadwatch.ie 's routing software. We never got lost. well, we missed a turn once ina while, but almost always figured that out before we got too far.

the biggest problem we had is that some intersections had so many signs, it would take a while to read them all, and you'd be past the turn before you realized it was the way to go.

so I don't know if gps would be helpful or not. But we didn't find it necessary at all. (this is quite different from the Cotswolds in England, where we were lost ALL the time).