To GPS or not GPS?

For the fall mid-term break, we spent the week in Tuscany. Since Tuscany is an area with limited public transportation, we rented a car for a week rather than use public transportation. So far, when we travel places and rent a car, we also rent a GPS. But when we landed in Florence, I realized I had forgotten to book the GPS. When I asked if we could get one, the agent told me they had just rented out the last one. The comment struck fear in my heart—drive around in a foreign country without GPS? How could I? Never fear, the agent armed me with a map and directions to the A1. So we left Florence airport armed with only our internal compasses and a good old fashioned map.
The week started out fine. We made it to our house easily enough, using the map, the car rental agent’s directions and the directions from the house. Also, we were staying with another family who had brought their GPS. Each day, we agreed to visit a specific town and we’d follow the other family who were guided by their GPS. On the way home, we usually found our own way home, using the handy old map. We also saw our friends misguided sometimes by their GPS, taking wrong turns. I was getting a little arrogant, believing why would you need a GPS when you have a good map and some common sense. How did people get around prior to GPS guides? Maybe GPS is cheating and we should all have to make do with just maps.
My attitude changed the night we drove home from Montalcino. Our friends went a different way. Their GPS kept making them go the wrong way down narrow streets so we left in a different direction. We managed to make it out of town okay following some very self-explanatory arrows. However, it was dusk and we managed to miss the first turn on a round-about. No worries, we realized our mistake and turned around quickly. We started on the way back to the house and I lost track of time reading a book. However, when we made it back to the town we visited earlier the same day, we managed to make a big loop around town following the signs. When we made it back to the four-lane highway, we went the opposite direction of the house and had to go 5 km until we could turn around. Then, we got off the four-lane, heading to Castiglion Fiorentina, we couldn’t read the directional signs and managed to add at least 8 km on to our trip, heading back to Cortona. Two hours after leaving Montalcino, we made it home, at least half an hour after our friends who used their GPS. We were very happy to have made it back to the house.
After a week of driving around Tuscany, I believe that utilizing a GPS is not cheating. Sure, you can get around with an old-fashioned map but it’s a bit like refusing drugs when you’re delivering a baby—if God didn’t want us to use them, he wouldn’t have given us the ability to invent them. Maybe we will fish out our old GPS and upgrade it. We just have to figure out how to charge it without a car!