Our best travel aid for the New Zealand trip

The Washington Post is running an interesting poll [now gone] on what readers consider to be the best travel innovation of the last decade. The leader by far at this point is suitcases with wheels, which is what I chose. But there are a lot of great choices. For our New Zealand trip, a GPS (one of the choices in the poll) was extremely handy. We bought a Garmin nüvi 350 at Amazon just before we left, and downloaded the New Zealand map set.

Now you might think that a Web geek would think right away that a techno-thing like a GPS would be hugely cool, but it was Cathy who really wanted it. I was convinced that printed maps would do just fine, as they have for all of my trips over the past 40-odd years. That feeling began to die the first time I needed fuel for the campervan. Cathy just asked “Bitchin’ Betty” where to get diesel, and she said that there was a Mobil station 1.1 km ahead, on the left-hand side of the road right past a curve on the highway. The curve was tight enough that if I didn’t know the station was coming up I wouldn’t have been able to stop. Her assistance got more and more useful as Cathy got used to all the features. Attractions, RV parks, takeaways (fish & chip shops), Betty had it all covered. So while the wheels on our suitcases were a big help getting to and around the airports, the GPS was our biggest help for this trip.

What’s your choice for the best travel innovation??