A habit of always carry an atlas and maps of anyplace I drive through, and carry a compass in the car, has saved me several times in the past, including when I was driving in Ireland last month in rental car. The car's navigation system as bad. I wrote about it on X, and here's an excerpt:
... That is, until we came across our first detour, or "diversion" as the Irish call them. The Kia sat-nav does not deal well with diversions. In fact, over the course of 4 or 5 major diversions, it repeated and consistently brought us right back to the point where the road was closed. This may not be Kia's fault entirely, and may point out a flaw in many GPS systems inability to deal with Irish back roads though, because the 5th time we hit a diversion sign, a half-dozen cars were stopped by the closure sawhorses, all trying to figure out where they were verses where they were going. They weren't all Kias, and some people where attempting to get coherent directions from their smartphones and not fairing well either.
I know a few of you scoffed at my mention several weeks back about bringing paper maps and a compass, but using the paper atlas, I was able to come up with an alternate route and be on our way, leaving the lesser mortals behind, gnashing their teeth over the fact that they might well be lost in the Irish countryside for all eternity.
The full post on X:
Driving in Ireland
