When I went on my vacation a few weeks ago, my boyfriend had forgotten and left his Garmin at home, and was halfway to my house when he realized it. He told me to grab my TomTom and we ended up using that.

I didnt have to subscribe to anything to make it work. Subscribing to the pay service for it gives you a couple of extras, like you can use the TomTom to call the police, and a few other things, but you dont need to subscribe to anything to get a signal and make things work. It works directly out of the box.

It was annoying at one point, because we drove into Minnesota (from South Dakota) to go to a national monument. Pipestone National Monument. The TomTom wanted us to take a route that said it was 50 miles away. We passed a sign that said Pipestone was 30 miles away. We turned off and the TomTom got all ticked off. Kept wanting us to turn around. After about a minute, it recalculated and shut up.

When we left, we hadnt turned on the TomTom, and we got turned around a bit. I turned on the TomTom and it directed us to take the way back that it originally had wanted us to take in. Took us about 10 miles out of our way. Wasnt too bad tho, because the scenery in that part of Minnesota is very pretty, so we didnt totally mind that it took extra time to drive back into South Dakota.

It was nice for me, because the last time we'd taken a trip, I was the navigator, and I'm not the best map reader. I didnt get us lost, but I did get dizzy occasionally having to read a paper map. The TomTom made it easier on me. Because all I had to do was program the thing. I did have a paper map with us (that we didnt use except for when we were in Sioux Falls and didnt want to worry about the TomTom getting stolen out of the car)

I'd gotten my TomTom for christmas last year, and that was the first time I ever got to use it. It was pretty cool. If I take any more trips, I'll be taking it along because it does make it a bit easier to find your way around. Plus, I liked being able to look at it and know where I am. I lose my sense of direction when I go on vacations. Being able to look at it and see which way the compass was pointing, helped me keep my sense of direction somewhat.