I'm actually about to leave my house to go to a rehearsal in Brooklyn, but I just wanted to take a second and put up a post about a little device that I think every single musician should have...a GPS unit.
I've had the TomTom One second edition (pictured on the left) for about 2 years now and I can't sing enough praises about it! It's been a very helpful tool for me and I honestly can't see how I've been doing as much traveling as I have been for gigs without it.
By no means is this going to be a review or an endorsement for TomTom products, or whatever, but I do think that any serious musician who is on the road a lot should really consider having a GPS unit as important as having their instrument for the gig.
As a "gadget guy" I had been wanting a GPS for a longtime, but thought they were too pricey and really didn't want to spend the money on one since I could always just print up directions from yahoo or google maps.
Then something happened to change my mind.
I was on my way to a gig deep in upstate New York. I was just getting through a confusing section of the highway when I came across the part in my printed up directions that said, "turn onto local road"...we've all seen that one! The only problem was it was a really weird exit, traffic was bad with people driving fast, and there was no obvious indicator as to which turn was the correct one off of the exit because there was a succession of 3 or 4 turns and none of them had street signs or names!
I had no time to think and in the middle of trying to reread the directions I nearly got into an accident. That pretty much sealed the deal for me. I began to think back to the times that I had encountered a similar problem. Realizing that buying a GPS unit would be cheaper than dealing with medical bills, I went to Staples the very next day and picked up my TomTom One.
It's been great! In over 2 years of VERY heavy usage, I can count only 6 or 7 times that it was either wrong or couldn't supply me with the exact address. But in all those cases, it still got me to within 5 minutes of where I was suppose to be. I always take a print out of the venue's address, phone number, and contact person anyway so that I can adjust if there is a problem with the directions from the GPS.
So anyway, that's my little rant about having a GPS. And like I said, it's what EVERY musician needs!
