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Comment by jonknee | Hacker News Reader

I do appreciate my car GPS for when I'm outside of cell range though (which is frequently--mountains and radios don't work well together).

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A mistake I'll make only once: driving to Montreal only to realize my phone was useless once I got to the city limits and needed to figure out how to get to my hotel.

If you start the navigation ahead of time it'll keep going even if you're offline. It caches the route and gps waypoints. Worked great on my trip from NYC to Quebec City.

Ah, that's good to know. I didn't do that since I know how to get to Montreal itself easily. From my front door: left, left, right, straight * 3 hours.

A one time mistake, for sure, though!

They have these things called maps, sold at gas stations.

Which aren't much good for finding most POIs.

If you know the address or cross-streets it is very easy. You can also ask for directions. Believe it or not people managed to travel to and around unfamiliar cities just fine before the widespread use of GPS.

Believe it or not "I got lost when I realized my GPS was useless" does not imply "I starved to death in the cold Canadian woods after wandering aimlessly for 4 days."

I found the hotel just fine! It was just a bit of a "should've seen that coming" type of moment, is all.

OsmAnd (http://osmand.net/) downloads OpenStreetMap data to your phone for offline navigation on Android (there is also an iOS version that has maps but not driving directions yet). IMO the OsmAnd navigation UI is better than Google Maps, the search far worse.

If you're on Android, Nokia's Here application has fantastic offline navigation maps.

I believe those maps are what my car uses.

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