Anyone who's lived or worked in Manhattan for any length of time will tell you that it's virtually impossible to get lost in New York City's central borough. The streets, they'll say, are all laid out in a grid—they're nearly all perpendicular or parallel to each other. What's more, there's even a system for using address numbers to find building locations. I've never figured out this last part, but I have to agree that it's hard to get lost on this island. Paris, however, is another matter.

Earlier this year my wife and I embarked on our first European vacation, to the City of Lights. But despite having spent hours studying maps of Paris's neighborhoods (arrondissements), I still couldn't make heads or tails of the street (rue) layout. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. So although I made a conscious decision to leave my laptop at home, I also decided to take a portable global positioning system (GPS), to save us if we got lost.

Last year, we reviewed the Garmin nüvi 350 (it won our Editors' Choice), so with the company's permission and the addition of a European map and translation SIM card, I took the device with me to Paris.

On the advice of friends, I packed a day's worth of clothes and all my electronic devices in my carry-on bag. Luggage can get lost on domestic flights, but it's a far more likely occurrence on intercontinental trips. I could think of nothing worse than arriving in Paris without clothes or any of my technology. Fortunately, we and our luggage arrived together in France, and it wasn't long before I started using the nüvi.

Paris has a decent transit system, consisting of buses, subways (Metro), and commuter trains. I wanted to take one of the affordable and speedy commuter trains from Charles de Gaulle Airport to the city proper, but as is often the case in France, some part of the transit system was on strike. Looking at the huge line snaking out of the ticket office, my wife and I opted for a taxi.

To my surprise, we found no line and got in a waiting taxi. The driver agreed to a 50-euro fare, and we were on our way. Knowing nothing of France or whether this was indeed a good price, I worried about what would happen if he took us the long way. A minute or so after leaving the airport, the driver turned toward us and in broken English asked if he could "get a drink." I didn't realize he meant the car needed gas. He pulled into a gas station and got out, and I took the opportunity to quickly reach into the luggage just behind our seat and grab the nüvi.

A few days before we had left for France, I had spent time configuring the device, which included turning off the default U.S. map and enabling the European one (before I did this, every search for "Paris" would also bring up places like Paris, Texas.) I had entered our destination hotel and saved it as a "Favorite" location. Back in the cab, I flipped up the nüvi's GPS antenna, selected "Paris Hotel" (you can name your saved locations), and set it as our destination. Within moments, the GPS had triangulated our position and showed clearly that we were heading in the right direction. It also started, to my chagrin, announcing upcoming turns. This was my own fault. The nüvi is intended as a safe, in-car device and announces directions, so you do not have to take your eyes off the road to look at the map. I quickly disabled the voice—before my cabby appeared to notice it—and then had to contend only with the safety warnings that popped up each time I launched the device.

Thirty minutes later, we arrived at our hotel, with the GPS indicating that we had not taken one wrong or extraneous turn. It was an auspicious start.—Continue reading...