As a motoring journalist, I often get to play with really fancy, expensive cars. But I've noticed that it isn't just the break-the-bank machines that come with built-in navigation these days: little piddly cars have these systems too, even though they are quite often fitted as expensive options. Incidentally, from a car buying point of view, it is never a great idea to spend extra money on optional extras for your new car. Firstly, you can't keep them when you sell the car; and secondly the used value of a car is generally computed on the base model, so the money you spent on extras is going only in one direction: down the tubes. So if you can, rather buy a fully specced car, such as those sold by Hyundai, Honda and Suzuki, to name but a few...
But I digress. Actually, I don't. The point is that it is always handy to have a Nüvi, because even if you have a fancy shmancy car with built-in navigation, you may not always be driving that car... This was beautifully illustrated to me a couple of weeks ago, when I had to leave my home town of Cape Town, and head northwards to the Big Smoke to do some interviews for our documentary show on kykNET, called Onthou.

The show deals with South Africa's greatest crimes and criminals, and has us filming in some dire locations. So I was sure to pack my trusty 3790LT, because even though I've lived in Joburg for many years, I've become very Cape Tonian in my ways... Which is bad in Gauteng.

As it were, my interview was on the dodgy side of that Brigadoon of the West, Potchefstroom, and I may never have found it if it wasn't for Emily's calm guidence.

I got into my hire car, fitted the Nüvi, gave it a moment to get over the shock of having just travelled 1,500km on an aeroplane and set off. The moment that beatific voice started guiding me through the spaghetti maze of motorways, I felt a calm come over me. And off we went beyond yonder, straight to Potch (and through a rather impressive thunder storm, as shown in the picture).

Thing is, had I only had the in-car system I would've been in trouble. Because it was at home. In Cape Town. Fat lot of good that thing is if you travel a lot... Sure I could've gotten away using the Garmin mapping on my iPhone, but I could also have gotten a fine; run down the battery; crashed and died in the process. So I'll take Emily's voice any day, and recommend you do too...