This is my limited knowledge of GPS. I bought a handheld Garmin which came with maps that included major roads in the U.S. This little apparatus has a nice sized book, and many menus to go through so I have practiced using it in the car. If you have a good signal it works great and follows your path, gives distance traveled etc. It is a good tool for mapping your way to get back. Every time you turn or hit a fork you can mark a waypoint which you can look for in the opposite direction to find your way back. We purchased it for hiking so trails and off roads are not listed. Also, streets in communities are not listed unless you download the maps. I later purchased the CD which includes trails in the US National Parks West. It was awesome. It showed the trail, the elevation gain/loss, miles traveled, etc. Usually we hike on marked trails so getting lost is not necessarily a problem but it helped out this past summer. Hiking with an overweight and out-of-shape companion and his son in Glacier National Park. We tried to find trails listed as moderate/easy and had the least amount of elevation gain. My husband chooses a trail with a 200 ft. elevation gain over 9 miles. That's nothing. Only problem was that 1000 ft. elevation gain and then a 800 ft. elevation loss. Now our friend is really struggling and it is getting cold and dark. I was getting worried (I could make it there before dark and I wasn't going to sleep with the grizzly bears) and started following the trail with the mouse. I was able to see that we were getting ready to reach our highest elevation and it was all downhill from there. It gave our friend the motivation to start pushing himself and get those crazy ideas about sleeping on the side of the mountain out of his head. After all this I do not know how detailed the map would be for Ireland. I don't think it would give most houses in small townlands but I would recommend contacting one of the GPS manufacturers directly. Our National Park disk even showed "pit toilets" on the trail. I found the Discovery Series Maps to be great but they only cover a small area. If you are looking for a small townland they are awesome. The GPS would at least give you the towns you were approaching so you wouldn't get lost. I did not have time to get in touch with Garmin before leaving for Ireland. I do like to just start driving around and go on little adventures and with the maps we had we never got so lost we couldn't easily find our way back. From my understanding, the GPS uses 3 satellites that do some measurement together to give you an estimate (sometimes within feet) on your present location. If you have 4, you can also get the elevation of your present location. I may not be totally accurate on this information but the more satellite signals you have, the better. Our Michelin map, the map from Dan Dooley car rental (my daughter liked this best), the Discovery Maps of specific areas, and the help of many nice people on the road there was no problem getting around Ireland. Karen It was suggested that a GPS would come in handy finding places in Ireland. How would that work? What sources are there that would give you the GPS coordinates of an individual house on a townland for example? One source I'm aware of is http://www.fallingrain.com/world/EI/ but does that really get down to the level of detail that is needed? -dja ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IRL-CORK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com