New to Charlotte - should I get GPS? (Gastonia, Pineville: job, hospital)

[doomayula]

I'm from a small town and never needed it. Now, we're temporarily in Pineville, looking for houses in SW Charlotte and also Gaston County, and my dh works in Gastonia. I'm also taking the kids all over Charlotte, so we're doing a lot of driving.

I'm from the generation that used those old-fashioned things called MAPS so I'm kind of against a GPS, but it seems like it would be so much more handy than pulling out a map, or printing up mapquest all the time.

Thoughts?

[SunnyKayak]

Yes I would especially in that side of town.

Charlotte has numerous street names for the same street and the old wagon path design in the roads it will save you alot of time. Plus the street signs are made for those who have zoom vision and you may encounter that you need to be 3 lanes over to make left or right at least with gps you will know in advance the path you need to take and when a turn is coming up.

[abcornwell]

I bought a detail map of Charlotte (at the little news stand in Carolina Place Mall), one each of Mecklenburg, Gaston, and York counties (at various gas stations). So far it's been easy to find things and also explore alternative routes. But - I like maps and atlases and enjoy finding my way around. You should look at the publish date on the maps,for example Fort Mill has grown so rapidly that a 3 year old map might be misleading.

[coldvi23]

People usually become Dependant on those things, i prefer learning the roads and memorizing them

[arussell]

Been here seven months and could not live without my gps. Yes, driving and trying to read those small signs, will make you miss plenty of turns. I'm not a map person, unless I'm forced. I knew before moving that a gps was in order. Thanks for my Garmin it saved me plenty of times when I venture out. For my first month here I purposely drove around and got lost to see more of Charlotte--and when I wanted to go home, I simply hit go home. (Gas was way cheaper in June). You don't have to rely on it, but you will be pleased and feel at ease knowing it's a point, click away. My only suggestion is that Charlotte is still growing and you may need to purchase updated disc for gps. I had to purchase one on a gps one that was less than a year old.

[FLtoNC]

Yes, I don't think you will regret it. I used maps for several months, and then finally gave in. The nice thing about a GPS is that you can explore roads you wouldn't normally turn on & find new routes to your destination. You can also find alternate routes when roads are closed or traffic is bad.

[searpr]

You can, but don't think it's going to be accurate all the time. And you WILL spend lots of time looking for streets that no longer exist, have been renamed, etc. Or you'll be told to turn the wrong way on a one way street, or turn a direction that's impossible to turn....can you tell I've been frustrated? For example, someone got the bright idea of renaming part of Independence Blvd in Midtown (?) to Charlottetown. WHY!?

I have to drive different places for my job, so I rely heavily on MapQuest, Googlemaps, GPS, etc. It IS helpful most of the time, but just make sure you leave in plenty of time for those inevitable incorrect instructions. I lived in two other cities and the maps were almost always accurate.

[groove1]

My dad got one for Christmas. I don't know about the maps, but there were several businesses on there which had closed over 2 years ago.

[bibit612]

It is helpful for going to places that are established...Bobcats Arena, the stadium, Presbyterian Hospital, your doctors, etc. Allows you to re-route if you decide to be smarter than it is and not sit in traffic since it will just "Recalculate" (with the very annoying nagging voice!)

Not good in finding new communities or new roads within communities, but you won't find those in Mapquest or Googleearth either, as you would still have to rely on people to give you directions, but at least you get to the general area.

I still would go for it. Got one for DH the other year and we have saved so many trees by not printing out mapquest directions each time.

[cynwldkat]

We moved to NC from CA last year. I can tell you our GPS was very much appreciated. My husbands son, who already lives in NC got so tired of us calling him and asking how to go to certain places or to help us because we were sorta lost..He ended up buying us a GPS. We did have maps and I do know how to use them but I'm telling you, the roads here in NC had to have been made by "Moonshiners". There just seems to be no rhyme nor reason!! We were looking to buy a home and it made locating the places we were looking at much easier. Now that we have been here awhile we are learning the roads so we rarely use it...but it still is handy. Just to find gas or a place to eat..it definitely does come in handy--at least for us it did and still does at times. Our GPS is accurate about 90% of the time. What I mean by that is as the above poster noted sometimes places are no longer in business. But it still beats wandering around on roads and spending hours trying to find your way not to mention how much gas you save!!