[libranof1987]

In Europe and the US, I have blindly followed Google Maps or a navigation device: TomTom / Garmin. At least in the US, it's bound to raise a few eyebrows when a brown man stops and asks random strangers for directions.

In India, I did follow Google Maps without a second thought until a few years back. Since a while now, I find GMaps to continuously try to get you to your destination through the quickest distance or time (no consistent logic), often taking you off conventional highways or established routes. I've had to drive through fields and kaccha roads when I was re-routed because there was slight congestion on the main route.

What I do now: find the route on Google Maps and look for any deviations that it suggests from the main highways and ask locals for confirmation. Just this past weekend, I asked a hotel owner for last mile directions and had him enter the exact waypoints (rather than town names) on the GMaps app. Worked wonders.

Just a tip through experience: if you ask locals, ensure you ask if YOUR vehicle can do it just as easily. Locals often have unbreakable workhorses such as Boleros that can do the terrain easily that your delicate hatch/sedan might struggle on.

Lastly, always ask if you have support on the way: restaurants, shops, fuel stations so you are not stranded.

[Miel]

As of 121 votes, "I do not go to unknown destinations" has zero votes! These Team-Bhpians are an adventurous lot I say!!!

I started using Google Maps, Google Earth, and Wikimapia as early as 2007 when roaming cities, both foreign and domestic. I would either scour the map thoroughly on a PC before heading out, or take screenshots and print those out. Somewhere during this time I found my better half and she took over the job of sifting through many printouts as a dutiful navigator while I drove. We continued this until we both had big screen Android phones.

I still do a survey of the route on Google Maps before heading out, but we keep our maps and GPS on in our phones during the length of the trip.

Have we gotten "lost"? Hell yeah We have ended up in roads too rough or too narrow for the car. A certain time, we decided to take the "road less travelled" and ended up driving through a remote school's playground and stopped at a picket fence, before sheepishly turning around much to the amusement of the kids playing cricket there.

[YD14]

We follow the google maps mostly, but whenever going someplace unknown we make sure to ask our acquaintances for preferable routes if anyone of them has travelled there. Even if we go to some completely unknown place, we make sure that we are on paved and wide enough roads. The thing is that four-laned highways or even two-laned highways mostly do not become one-laned, desolated and unpaved roads out of nowhere. So, whenever we see such a road which google maps wants us to take, we stop and ask locals for the correct route.

Also in hills even on known roads, there is always a chance of a landslide blocking the road and the alternate route may require backtracking for hours. So on rainy days, we make sure to ask cars travelling in opposite direction (especially taxis) whether the road is clear.

So its GPS + local help.

[vishwasvr]

I've been a victim of very badly misdirected thanks to GPS (Google maps, TomTom, because the software was not updated, both abroad and here in India.)

I realised asking locals can be a hit or miss sometimes.

What I now do is use maps for exact locations, such as a hotel, resort etc, and ask locals for unknown destinations.

[reignofchaos]

I use Google maps pretty much all the time. In case gmaps tries to divert me off the main road through some random road, I simply ignore them and it keeps rerouting until I find a road big enough to take. This is much easier than blindly taking what gmaps suggests and landing up in a field.

[RavSam]

My maternal uncle took our entire family on a South India roadtrip in Force Trax back in 2001. No maps, no plan nothing. Just bunch of places to see noted in the diary and off we went on a 7 day trip which scared the living daylights out of us on few occasions as we went through forest covered roads. What a memorable trip it was!

Right now I'm so dependent on my Google maps that sometimes I don't even try to remember the roads in my city and boy does it feel awkward now to stop while driving/riding and ask for major directions (not the gully ones).

So I use Google maps extensively sometimes stupidly taking longer route with unpaved roads just because they seem shorter.

[sup?]

I have been bitten by Google maps multiple times and have yet to learn my lessons fully. In India there is always an option of stopping and asking locals for help whenever you think the maps is leading you astray, but there have been a few times where I have been unsuspecting and too trusting of google maps resulting in delays and turnarounds.

On vacations outside India, I have been screwed over by both car GPS and Google maps. In Oslo, our rental had inbuilt GPS which is convenient to use. So, we didn't open google maps for a while. But when we hit none of the landmarks that we had researched beforehand for a good hour or so, we checked with google maps and turns out the car's GPS was leading us in the exact opposite direction of where we wanted to go. In Europe, there are barely any people about anywhere after 5 PM. Since we didn't trust google maps implicitly, we took an exit and wandered around for an open shop and they told us we were 20 minutes from Sweden instead of deep into western Norway like we were supposed to be. So that was one occasion Google maps was right.

On another occasion, in Austria we were travelling to a lake in western Austria on the Swiss border. We entered a village from where the lake was supposed to be 6 kms away on a straight road. Suddenly, google maps asked us to take a detour into a tiny road where our car would barely fit. My wife was navigating and she asked me to keep going. I was adamant that this could not be the right route and carefully backed out the 200 meters or so that we already traversed on that road. After we backed out and were wondering what to do, a big SUV came right out of the tiny road. Turns out that was a private road. Imagine we had traversed another kilometre or so into that road when we met the SUV face to face. We would have had to back out the whole way and gotten cursed by the owner of the private road. Narrow escape from embarrassment.

[aaggoswami]

If its in some urban area, Google maps is reasonably accurate and hence it works for me. For visiting unknown Tier 2/3 cities, smaller towns, always double check with locals, there have been instances when reversing a large car can be damn difficult. Moreover, now I have decided that if I am visiting any relative in places I dont frequent, first thing is stop near any famous landmark, call the hosts to navigate. This saved me a lot of time in Jaipur.
I avoid Google Maps when there are lots of diversions, it gets confused and can take one to an entirely different road, this is where asking direction from locals pinpoints to correct route. A funny incident in Ahmedabad : Went to visit friend from my Ahmedabad home and got late plus curfew timings created tight timeline for me. Hurriedly I entered a landmark near my home on Google Maps. Unfortunately, same society name also cropped up across the river in different area and I accidentally selected it. Once I reached the bridge, I realized that there is something gross mistake. Barely made it back home before curfew timings set it.

[Adam]

I used to follow Google maps blindly and once ended up in a never ending flyover loop abroad. Since then I try to check the the road signs and boards along with google map.

And here in India following Google maps and signboard I ended up in a very narrow road between buildings with no other option rather than going forward and having not even an inch to spare between building and my car, since then I do check with the locals if some suspicious diversion is shown in map. Or even in some case I used to park the car somewhere safe and walk to the destination if its nearby.

[Marshall]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

And of course, apart from being a navigator and a bit of nerd when it comes to the latest and greatest electronic gadgets, I am also a bit of an old git. So I will always bring my sextant too!

Attachment 2114067

I dont have so many greys as yet, its always a goosebump seeing a sextant being held passionately, considering the new school considers navigation and ship handing as a science, in a way I am glad I am on the wrong side of the sea. I am from the last gen to have used a SATNAV and among the 1st to have used a GPS / GMDSS

[dailydriver]

For locating the forest, I rely on Google/Here maps. To zero in on individual trees, nothing beats the convenience of human help.

A chap in Hyderabad seems to agree with me (Pic courtesy: WhatsApp)!

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by dailydriver

For locating the forest, I rely on Google/Here maps. To zero in on individual trees, nothing beats the convenience of human help.

A chap in Hyderabad seems to agree with me (Pic courtesy: WhatsApp)!

To reach "Pasha Bhai ki Dukaan" am sure Googlemaps will lead to the right one where human help can be asked to reach the ultimate destination .

So, as the popular opinion goes here, it's always the combination of navigation apps and help from locals.

[eyeman]

Well, I have come to rely on google maps a lot, especially in the past few years. In older days, when we used to go on long trips, I used to write down a detailed route in advance. For this I used to ask friendly taxi drivers in my neighbourhood. Usually they would be able to give a detailed route map, along with road conditions , because they or their fellow drivers would have already travelled that route several times. Nowadays , with google , I am comfortable 95 percent of the time. If in any doubt, I stop and ask the locals.

[gkveda]

I believe the quote below to the core when driving

Don’t base your decisions on the advice of those who don’t have to deal with the results

So, if you purely believe Google maps alone, its going to be sure shot disaster

I always go with 3 advices
1. The people who i would be meeting at destination. They are the best people to give route map at high level

2. Google maps - This is based on the high level route map suggested by point 1. If gmap suggests other routes, i will add stops and create the required route map.

3. Locals: I go purely with size of the road combined with my notion to decide whether gmap is really giving right direction. The moment gmap suggests to take a turn (left or right), if the road size is smaller than current road, i will ask locals help to find if

A. The road is right to reach destination
B. Road condition is right
C. Any better road to reach destination

Based on all the above, will take a conscious call whether to follow Google or not

[chetancm7]

Somehow I am averse to using Google maps due to its unreliability IMHO. The most preferred method is to seek out the locals or ask bus/lorry drivers since they know the route pretty well. Haven't faced any scenario of being lost since I prepare myself before hand prior to visiting any unknown place. Most of that preparation is in the form of friends advises, or google search about the destination or even to some extent the social media platforms also have been decent.