Driving

If you don't want to use your phone, I like Tom Tom. Far better than the Garmins I had before, for the UK anyways.

Google maps are free, and if you can download all the areas you are going before you leave, you don't even need a data connection to use it.

Tom Tom is easier.

I'm a 68 year old woman who recently spent 3 weeks in Scotland by myself, and had a rental car for 2 1/2 weeks. The car rental agency gave me a Nav sat device for free in the car, but I wound up using my phone's GPS (Google maps) instead as I liked it better. It never got me lost and I never had any problem with at all.

The advantage is that it's free and it works. Is there some reason you don't want to use the built in GPS in Google maps on your phone?

I use my phone, where you can use Google maps, Apple Maps and Waze to get you where you want to go. Last year over 16 weeks of travel (2 trips) I had 5 rentals cars. On each one I was able to connect to Apple Car Play and use the larger screen for navigation purposes. Prior trips I brought a magnetic car mount, but I think all newer vehicles have the ability to access Apple Car Play or Android Auto. If using this system don’t forget a cord to connect the phone to the vehicle.

My husband & I rented a car in June during our two weeks in England & Wales. We have T-Mobile and used iMaps connected to the car through Bluetooth. It worked very well. Our T-Mobile plan gives us unlimited data in Europe, so that was a free option for us.

I love maps.me. It's a free app on my phone. I can download maps when I have wifi and use offline quite similar to GPS. It provides spoken step by step instructions.

Is there a way to check with the rental car company before your trip whether GPS will be included? If so, that may help you decide. Then there is the matter of figuring out how to program it, whether you're comfortable with that learning curve, etc. We rented a car in France in May, and it came with GPS. No additional fee, it was just part of the rental car package. Not sure how much one can generalize our experience to other European countries (or rental car companies), but it might be worth investigating.

If you have (or will have) a data plan on your phone while in Italy, you will have a Plan B to assist with navigation in the event that the car's GPS doesn't meet your needs (or is non-existent). We were not savvy about using the GPS in our rental car, and were rather annoyed that there was no guidance about how to program it for our destinations, etc. In hindsight, we should have done better research and/or nudged the Hertz staff to help us understand how to use it. (You can probably tell that we drive older cars that pre-date GPS! And I am probably dating myself! MaryAnn, you and I are likely close in age, based on your mother's age...)

I suspect GPS is becoming more and more common in rental cars, especially given that so many rental car fleets had to be replenished after selling off earlier inventory during the pandemic, when no one was traveling or renting cars. It had been 10 years since my last car rental in Europe, and I was reminded just how much technological leap-frogging had occurred in that time.