I have a Garmin Nuvi 300 (I think it’s 300). It’s a few years old, but I love it.

I would recommend finding a website that reviews GPS devices. It really helped me figure out which features were must haves (like reading out street names, instead of saying “Turn right”) or not necessary (I chose not to have traffic info, because I don’t usually need it and at the time it was a lot of added expense). There were some Garmin units going for $700, but the one I got was extremely highly rated and only $300, so it really helped me compare between models and figure out what was worth the price.

Then again, I like to research stuff. lol If you just want a broad recommendation, I recommend Garmin over the other brands, just for ease of use.

The site I found was specific to GPS and I remember it had a big chart with check marks for which features were available on which units. I’ll see if I can find it again. I’m sure I typed something simple into google, like “GPS reviews”. It was a good site because it didn’t focus so much on fancy features and gave good reviews for whatever products worked well – the one I got was already a couple years old at the time and much less money than the fancy units, but it was rated #1 or 2.

The Garmin Nuvi that I have sounds like what you want – it reads street names (which I think is standard for pretty much all of them now, but it wasn’t when I bought it), but doesn’t have any of the newer fancier things that you don’t need. I just checked and it’s the Nuvi 350. They still sell them and they’re only about $130 now. I’d highly recommend it! It’s basic, works well, and is small enough that I keep it in my purse at all times. I used to travel for work every week and I took it everywhere. The software is easy to use as well.

Garmin recommends you update the maps every year for a couple hundred dollars – I haven’t updated yet and I got it in 2008, so don’t feel like it’s a necessity. It does annoy me that to get European maps you have to buy the whole set of them (which is like $200-300). My friend had an older, bulkier Garmin and she was able to buy just German maps for less than $50. Not that I go to Europe often, but it was super handy to use her unit the couple times I went to Germany for work, but not enough that I’d pay $300 for it.

Wow, that’s an awesome deal! I don’t have much traffic around here, but I do wish mine had traffic for when I need to go to the airport or take road trips. When I bought it, traffic was usually a subscription thing and I didn’t want to pay for it. Maybe I need to drop mine “accidentally” and ask DH for a new one 😛

And you’re welcome 🙂 I hope you like it! I’ve been very happy with mine and I don’t know what I’d do without it.

I think if we plan a European trip again I’ll just get it – I can’t imagine driving around there without a GPS. Unfortunately for me there are no European trips in my near future unless DH gets sent to Germany for work and I tag along. It would definitely be worth the $130 for the new unit in that case though – I would’ve been totally lost without my friend’s GPS that we bought the maps for. Mine does have Canadian maps standard though, which is nice. I used it in Montreal once and it was hilarious because any street name with Saint in it (St-Laurent Street or something) was pronounced “Street Laurent Street” by my GPS. It only knew one way to say “St.” so that’s what it said. lol

You must get one that tells you street names and exit numbers. I just about chucked our cheap one out the window in Colorado because it was so completely useless. It would tell you to exit in X yards and there would be 5 exits right next to each other. This was Denver though. LOL

I second LBJ: You need one that has all the exits,and names! My dad uses his Iphone4 it has an awesome GPS He velcroes(sp?) it to his wheel in the car!

the one in my pilot is awesome,, practically the entire car is voice activated except for the brakes & gas. there’s a bazillion commands to learn.
i can hit the lever on the steering wheel and say “display nearest sushi” and it will bring up a map and list of all the nearest sushi places.
the other day i said “damnit i have an itch” and this hand came out from down by the parking brake and totally took care of me.

http://www.talkandroid.com/35773-google-maps-navigation-vs-a-dedicated-gps-device-and-why-i-think-google-maps-nav-is-better/#.T2MlLHxWrOk

I use my Android phone for GPS. Google Maps auto updates, wherever you are, so not having a map is never an issue. I don’t need it daily, so for the 3-4 times a month that I need a GPS, my phone works fantastic. The ability to voice command it is even better. We’ve used it on trips with no issues whatsoever, and I have always had a strong data connection.

I don’t like having excessive possessions, and for my purposes, a dedicated unit is redundant.

Sticker, the Nuvi does read out all street names and exit numbers – that was the main feature I was looking for and I’ve been happy with it.

Very occasionally it will be confusing and not give an exit number, like in Boston where there are some ramps one after the other it can get a little confusing, but they may have fixed a lot of that in the 4 years since I got mine.

I use mine a lot like you do – I’m still pretty new to this area so I still forget how to get places. Like last night, I was going to a friend’s house half an hour away. I’m sure I could figure out how to get there, eventually, but I like having the GPS on just in case I get to an intersection and forget which way to go. I should really start turning the sound off though so I don’t rely on it – my sense of direction definitely isn’t as good since I started using it!