We are traveling in a group of 7 and using two cars. What is the best way to stay connected with each other especially in the rural areas?
FRS radios are tempting, but illegal due to frequency allocation -- but I've used them, albeit not very successfully because the other idiot was a motormouth and wanted to chatter instead of making sure the vehicles stayed together.
What I next tried was to stay in sight, failing that, have a meeting point at each stop. That didn't work to well either, even when the other guy had the gps and was in the rear.
What I do now is give the other guy the gps, put him in front, and honk like crazy when he screws up.
These tales involve three or four different people, not just one idiot.
If I ever do it again, I'll go with the meeting point idea.
You can buy two-way radios that are OK for use in Europe. We also have used FRS radios before we knew they were illegal, and they worked great for us. I would suggest buying a pair of the proper two-way radios. Barring that, you might need to have some hand signals for things like "need to stop". You probably won't have much trouble staying together, though, particularly on the rural roads.
We were able to borrow some legal radios and used those this summer. That was a quick and easy way to connect with the other car, kinda do what Ed was talking about, but we could actually say "where do you think you're going? Don't listen to the stupid gps!"
We have used two way radios in the past and found them very useful.