My GPS habit got replaced by a paper map on a 3 day trip
I used to punch every address into the phone before leaving the driveway, even for the grocery store two miles away. Last month I drove from Austin to Marfa with no signal for half the route, so I grabbed a foldout Texas map from a gas station for $4. Turns out reading the terrain and picking my own roads made the whole thing feel like an actual journey instead of just following a robot voice. Now I still use the phone for traffic in the city, but for longer drives I sketch the route on paper beforehand. Has anyone else ditched turn by turn directions for a map when going somewhere new?
Wait, you paid $4 for a foldout Texas map at a gas station? That is wild to me because every gas station I have been to in the last ten years either has zero maps or wants like $12 for some laminated thing. The fact that you just grabbed one and it actually worked for a drive from Austin to Marfa blows my mind. That stretch has some serious empty space where your phone is useless, so I get why you had to figure it out. Reading a paper map while driving sounds like a nightmare though, how did you even manage that without pulling over every five minutes?