Make Sure Your Navigation System is Up to Date Before You Hit the Road

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of NAVTEQ. All opinions are 100% mine.

Today has been the first really nice, warm and humid day in a very long time; possibly since last summer. If the weather keeps this up, we can start believing that summer is in fact well on its way. Summer brings upon so many good things–family gatherings, graduations, camping, laying by the pool, vacations, barbeques, theme parks and fond memories.

It’s May and it is during this month when a great deal of people will be planning their upcoming summer vacations, outings and gatherings. For most families, this summer will involve at least a moderate amount of traveling and most will do this traveling by car. If you don’t have a GPS or other in-car navigation system, you may be picking one up to make traveling easier without having to carve out more time for yourself to get lost and get found again. If you have an in-car navigation system, you may think you’re good to go, but think again. Your in-car navigation system could be tragically out of date and some pertinent information could be missing from your route, which could potentially cause a great deal of unnecessary chaos.

May is also NAVTEQ’s Map Update Month and at www.mapupdatemonth.com, you can find all of the information on how to make sure the maps within your GPS or in-car navigation system of any kind are completely up-to-date.

As soon as the weather starts to get nice, we can see the amount of roadwork that starts popping up all over our own communities; when thinking about the amount of work being done to create new highways, which create new routes used by travelers over the summer months, the amount of maps that change just because of that are tremendous. By having up-to-date maps, you will be able to plan out the easiest and fastest route possible to get to your destination and also find out what restaurants you will be near, where to stop for gas and where the nearest ATM will be, regardless of where you are.

GPS and in-car navigation systems also make extremely great gifts for new graduates. A great deal of newly-graduated young adults feel the need to flex their freedom and independence before entering the college ranks as freshmen. After graduation, many young adults will be headed on vacations or cross-country trips of their own and to make sure they are safe and efficient on the road, be sure to head to www.mapupdatemonth.com to make sure your new graduate’s in-car navigation system is up-to-date with all of the information they will need when driving to a great new spot during the summer and to college for the next four years while they plan out what will encompass their life’s work.

There have been several times in my life where having an up-to-date in-car navigational system would have saved me a great deal of frustration and even fear. When I was a teenager of maybe 16, my boyfriend at the time had just gotten his driver’s license and told me to pick somewhere I desperately wanted to go so we could take a real trip in his new car. I was ecstatic and very into the singer/songwriter Conor Oberst. I picked to travel a few hours’ distance and see him play live in Philadelphia. We did fine getting there and didn’t get lost at all, but getting home was severely frightening and frustrating. We got lost several times, completely turned around and wound up going in the opposite direction we needed to for several hours wondering why we never saw the turn we were supposed to take. What should have been a few hours worth of driving turned into an all night ordeal and I still remember the panicked feelings I had at the time when I finally got home and then had to go right to school so I didn’t miss my pre-SAT testing.

I wouldn’t wish those kind of feelings on anyone, so having an up-to-date in-car navigation system is imperative to your life and to your happiness while traveling. Traveling should be a fun, adventurous and eye-opening experience and to let it get ruined by anger, frustration and confusion just isn’t necessary when you have access to the kind of technology we are seeing and utilizing today.

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About the Author: Holly Ord

In addition to being the Founder and Editor of Woman Tribune, Holly Ord is a freelance writer, web designer and developer, feminist activist and blogger, and hopeless video game addict. She lives in Northeastern Pennsylvania and has been blogging on liberal politics and gender equality on her personal website, Menstrual Poetry since 2007.

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