We'll be Garmin round the mountain when we come. An international move to a big city meant we didn't know where or how to get anywhere. But with the advice from the Garmin Streetpilot we felt like instant locals.

It's challenging enough driving on the opposite side of the road in a car where everything is in the place that used to be the passenger side, then having to navigate interstate highways and roads that look like spaghetti junctions meant there was only one option, to purchase a GPS device.

Our family car sports the Garmin Streetpilot c330 with easy touch screen categories to choose from. Input a destination by address or spell the name, press go and the distance and time of arrival will appear on the screen along with a route map and voice directions. Great for making that school pick-up on time.

The voice is all important as there's a choice between an English or American accent. We first tried the English one but found her a little too stern if you turned too early or late. Her school principal-like tone kicked in as she insisted we make a U-turn' and it may have been our imagination but she seemed most put out when she had to recalculate' a new route.

This only added to the stress of driving so we switched to the American accent which seems to be a little more forgiving. If you prefer the voice can be turned off however, an early warning audio cue of when to turn or exit helps to traverse lanes of traffic on highways or main roads without panic.

The Garmin Streetpilot can also be programmed to find the route by the shortest distance or the fastest time. Let's just say that the shortest route is not necessarily the quickest so we soon learnt to keep ours set to the fastest time.

Touch the Arrival' or Speed' box and your trip information of average speeds, time stopped and the overall time of the trip appears. If it's a route you take often you can soon decide whether the shortest distance or fastest time route is preferable.

There is also the option of setting a home location, saving destinations in a Favorites' menu and accessing those routes often used in a Recent Selections' menu. So addresses and destinations need only be put in once.

The Streetpilot menu also includes categories like Food, Lodging, Fuel, Points of Interest, Schools and Transportation. The menu gives you a variety of destinations to choose from in each category and the distance and direction from where you're car is at that time.

For us, this has been a great way to find our way around locally as well as when traveling to another city on vacation.

So we'll be Garmin around whenever there's a new destination to visit.

Learn more about this author, Belinda Youlten.
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