No more back-seat navigators with GPS

I am one of many American males too proud and stubborn to ask for driving directions. But I was forced to put my ego aside when faced with the prospect of losing something more important than my pride: the ability to enjoy an auto tour of Europe without wasting time getting lost or being frustrated deciphering maps in languages I did not understand.

The source of my salvation was a global positioning satellite, or GPS, device, which made it difficult, though not impossible, to get lost. This technology, first developed by the U.S. military four decades ago, has become widely available to drivers in the last five years, and the Consumer Electronics Assn., a trade group, predicts that more than a million navigation units will be sold this year, a 300% increase from 2002.

Drivers can now choose from three basic GPS styles: hand-helds, which run on batteries; portables, which plug into a car's power outlet; or in-dash devices installed in automobile dashboards.

The in-dash device I had in a rental car not only plotted scores of routes for my 1,500-mile journey through Switzerland, Austria and Germany but also warned me when I strayed off course and told me how to get back on track.

The screen I consulted during our 10-day trip was only the tip of the GPS iceberg. Flying thousands of miles above were two dozen satellites that circle the planet twice a day at 7,000 mph. They, in turn, were in constant communication with my GPS receiver, which was programmed with coordinates for latitude and longitude. When combined with software that converted information about my location, the result was an easy-to-read map that showed where I was and where I was going.

A car trip, never mind satellite technology, wasn't part of the plan when my wife, Pamela, and I flew into Zurich, Switzerland, in May after a pleasant four-day interlude in London. The rest of our loosely planned itinerary was in the hands of Europe's reliable railroad system.

But fate intervened, as it often does. In Murten, a Swiss lake resort town between Bern and Lausanne, Pamela suffered a nasty fall, twisting her right ankle and smacking her left knee on a marble floor. Doctors put her right foot in a heavy cast, placed a flexible brace on her entire left leg, and sentenced her to crutches for the next two months.

Cutting our vacation short was not an option Pamela would consider, she of hardy pioneer stock. But getting around Europe on trains wasn't an option, either, because they require a certain agility to board, navigate and disembark.