Brittany & Normandy - driving alone?

My first couple of trips to Europe were driving solo and without benefit of GPS, GoogleMaps, or other online tools. If venturing off the major highways, then it's helpful to have a large-scale regional map (such as Michelin), which show a whole category of smaller roads that are not reflected on the "all-France" maps. It also helps to make a list of the towns through which you plan to drive. Many intersections, especially on smaller roads, will point toward the next town options, but not toward north or south or major road numbers. Your list could be on a post-it on the dashboard. This helps reduce the number of times you have to pull off the road to re-check your map. If you make a wrong turn, there is nobody else in the car to complain or to even know about it.

I just returned from France on Friday and we went to Brittany and Normandy by train. There were 8 of us traveling
and we enjoyed the train and found that it was not very expensive. We stayed 3 nights in Bayeux and did
guided tours of The Beaches and Mount St. Michel (we happened to have booked our thru Viator - a consolidator)
they hooked us up with company "Normandy Sightseeing Tours. We had the same guide for both places
a young man named Adrian and he was a wonderful guide. He drove us in a van to both places.
We had plenty of time to look around on our own at both places.

Two years ago I drove solo around Normandy and Brittany for almost 3 weeks. It can be a pain when you're alone and don't have a 2nd person to read maps and navigate but I'm used to it so it was no problem. I don't use a GPS at home so didn't use one in France either. Get good maps and look up your route ahead of time and do as Laura suggested - write down the names of the towns you will go through on your route. That's what I did too and it made it easy. All the intersections and round-a-bouts have signs with the nearby town names and the direction for them. I only got lost once in Normandy and that was in the dark trying to find my out of the way b&b. Otherwise all went fine. If you've driven alone in strange (unknown to you) areas of the US you should have no problem. Before you go learn the road signs and what they mean and know the speed limits and heed them. The places I went in Brittany weren't all well served by public transportation so driving was really my only option.

It also helps to make a list of the towns through which you plan to
drive. Many intersections, especially on smaller roads, will point
toward the next town options, but not toward north or south or major
road numbers. Your list could be on a post-it on the dashboard.

Laura's suggestion (quoted from her post) is worth a 2nd read, for anyone who's going to be driving in the French countryside. If you didn't know it, you would be blind-sided by the French signage, which doesn't often list the highway number and compass direction as in the US. It's the next town you need to know.