There's nothing worse than getting lost for hours in the middle of nowhere trying to find your hostel, with a heavy backpack slugged on your back, sweating like a pig and suddenly having the uncontrollable urge to use a toilet! Unfortunately I've had this experience too many times!!!
When we first started traveling in 2009, smartphones were not so common (not for our budget anyway) and if you got lost, it was really a case of either hoping you could find a local that spoke English, or trying to communicate with sign language that you invented on the spot.
Although this recurring situation led to a lot of funny (and is some cases not so funny) stories, the day smartphones with GPS became more affordable was a big relief.
Only problem is, the leader in the field - Google Maps, doesn't have a convenient, easy to use offline maps option.
This basically means you've got to fork out huge sums to pay international rates for roaming internet data whenever you get lost - and if you're a real adventurer, that can be quiet often.
I had one friend come back from a 1 month vacation in Egypt with a 1000 euro roaming data bill!
What's the solution?
Fortunately now there are free navigators that you can download and use offline and some of them work great!
I've tried a few out, but my favourite so far is Copilot GPS.
The video below explains it in more detail. It is available on both the Android and Apple platforms.
Enjoy and happy travels!
Flickr photo credit