Looking Forward to December
Posted in Costa Rica, Kewl Stuff, Travel Technology on Oct 23rd, 2008
eTrek Vista HCx hand held GPS
Can’t wait till our trip in December. I’m starting to put it all together. One thing I know is that it is going to be very mountain bike oriented. My wife and I went mountain biking around Arenal last year and it was awesome. I bought a basic Garmin GPS handheld a couple of years ago. Its starting to freeze up on me which sucks but its time to buy a new one anyway. The new technology they have is crazy. I’m looking at the new eTrex Vista HCx. Aside from being pre-loaded with maps for all of the Americas it detects altitude and has a built in compass. Modern GPS technology is a Godsend for people like me. I completely blows my mind how I can communicate with satellites to guide myself around. My wife and I took a Garmin Nuvi GPS to Europe on our last trip. It paid for itself several times over. We never got lost (unlike my sister who drove in Italy without one, lost hours outside of Florence) and it helped us find restaurants, hotels, etc. Amazing. Absolutely Amazing.
We also use GPS when we mountain bike. I don’t know how many times we would have gotten lost without it. We like to go deep into the woods and not all the trails out there are all that well maintained. If you travel, if you are active I heartily recommend a GPS device. Their price is as unbelievable as the service they provide. For a couple of hundred dollars I can carry in my hand a device that would have been worth an empire only a couple of centuries ago. A modern GPS device to an ancient explorer like Columbus or Magellan would be to us like a car that could fly to the moon.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!