Gps

I can only say that in rural central Sicily, our agriturismo hostess had warned us that while a TomTom would get us to her house, a Garmin wouldn't. We thought this was hyperbole, but it wasn't. Even with freshly updated maps, the Garmin simply didn't know the roads right near her place. It turned out to be fine for most of the rest of the trip, including very good details for driving in the center of Siracusa (Ortigia), and recalculating quickly and correctly when we had to avoid a ZTL in Taormina.

Again, that's one experience with one trip in one part of the country - hardly comprehensive.

Tom-Tom is a European brand, I think. I've used it in Europe and it worked well. Not a brand you see on the shelves here that much.

Definitely TomTom. If you stay in a very rural location, ask them for the best local coordinates/address nearby as some agriturismi do not show up even with TomTom....

Another option is sygic which is designed for cell phones and runs offline ie. no data connection or phone signal is required as it uses the phone's inbuilt gps and maps you download in advance via wifi at home. It uses tom tom maps. I use it in Europe as it saves taking a separate gps unit.

Thanks a bunch for your comments. Utilizing the cell phone makes a lot of sense.
Doug

We use a now six year old Tom Tom. It seems to work well, although it does not have some of the newer roads. Since this is my only gps no comments on other brands. I would take a gps with European maps with me. We have traveled some 7,000 Kim's with our unit and it has served us well. Enjoy your trip.

Doug,

I'm not sure what the "best" GPS unit is, but I've been travelling with an older (now discontinued) Garmin Nüvi and it's always worked well, both when driving as well as in pedestrian mode. One of these days I should probably update the maps, but it's not a huge priority as I can use the iPhone for "backup" if needed.

Just changed from my loyal TomTom to a Garmin on my last trip (11/17 to 12/1) to Austria, Slovenia, and down to Sicily. My Garmin was great and I had no problems getting to where I wanted. It was particularly great in notifying me of the temporary speed cameras, which was really important in Slovenia as they are cracking down with heavy fines for going over the limit.

We've used a Garmin in Italy, Sicily, and Switzerland every summer since 2009 without incident. In 2012 we Purchased a new Garmin Nuvi 2495LTM with the sd micro card containing maps of all or most of Europe, also with good luck. My only suggestion is to turn on the unit a day or two before you need it so it can interface with your current location. This way it will immediately be ready for use when you are.

Having a good map is also a cogent strategy. The GPS always took us to our destination, but sometimes we've had interesting field trips.

Buon viaggio,

We used our cell phone (unlocked an old iPhone and then bought a SIM card with a data plan in Italy when we landed) -- it worked out pretty well, though there were spots in Tuscany where we'd lose service periodically. However, we just tried to make a point of loading the next destination in the map when we had service -- and if you're going to a town, you usually can't get too far without there being signage (though my favorite was driving in Tuscany and arriving at an intersection with both directions having arrows toward our destination!).