Edward Hendriks
We have been going on car holidays to Italy for a long time, just like many of the readers of This is Italy. During our first trips to Italy (I am talking about the beginning of this century) you would map out a general route in advance. Are we going via Austria or Switzerland? Where do we want to cross the border approximately? What is a nice place to spend the night? On the way you had to make do with the signage, supplemented with separate route maps and the street directory. Now you turn on the navigation and let 'Big Tech' determine the route.
I remember a beautiful trip through Northern Italy. From Lago Maggiore to the Cinque Terre, Pisa, Tuscany, Venice, Milan and a few more places. We didn't have navigation at that time. And smartphones with Google Maps on them didn't exist yet. We just drove into Milan and looked for a random parking garage to find out where we were approximately.
If you wanted to go somewhere, you followed the signs or studied the map. Every now and then you stopped to take a closer look. 'If we go towards Bologna here, then we are on the right course.' Or even more vaguely: 'Let's drive as far east as possible.' Then we drove until we were tired and then grabbed a camping guide, also on paper.
Now you turn on the route planner and you can see immediately how many kilometers you have to drive, via which route and how long it will take. The overnight stay is booked in advance (or you can easily arrange it via booking.com). That really saves a lot of time.
When you drive longer distances, as a modern traveller you will receive tips on how to save some time or avoid a traffic jam. You don't really drive the wrong way anymore. If you do take a turn too early, the friendly voice of TomTom, Google or another route planner will quickly direct you back to the 'main route'.
You won't take that alternative route via a long, dusty and unpaved road any time soon. But that was what we did in the pre-navigation era. 'Should we cut through here?' 'Is that a passable road?' 'I don't know, but we'll see.' With a car full of dust we arrived at our next destination and we loved it.
Or that time we drove across Sicily in a rental car and wondered if those white roads on the road map were actually passable roads. The potholes in the road kept getting bigger and bigger until we finally ended up on a dirt road.
As we maneuvered past the holes and herds of sheep and cows, we asked ourselves with clenched buttocks whether we would ever get back to civilization? And those smiling men with hunting rifles along the route, were they really hunters?
We had all the time (it also helped that there were no children yet) and the journey was the holiday. Sometimes we got lost, but what did that matter? It is these journeys that are etched in our memories, precisely because they were exciting at times. Because we sometimes lost our way. Because we had to look on the map to see where we were and where we were going.
We were able to hold it off for a while. Isn't spontaneity great during your vacation? We were scouts, so we certainly don't need a route helper?
The resistance did not last long. At some point we had to keep up with the pace of the people. Navigation is useful, especially for holidays, it was said. The paper maps disappeared to make way for a navigation system and later for a smartphone with Google Maps.
And now? You get where you want to be, quickly and efficiently, but the spontaneity is gone. You no longer take a turn that takes you off the beaten track before you reach your destination, because imagine ending up on that C-road with an empty tank or a breakdown…
But you miss the feeling of the middle of nowhere, the special picnic spots, the shabby campsites, the deserted villages and the little-visited sights that you will never see again. Still, navigation during holidays often feels more like a curse than a blessing.
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