The DeLorme Tripmate GPS

If you travel by car (rented or owned) to strange and wonderful places and take a Windows laptop with you, you must have this remarkable $149 imaging gadget.

The DeLorme Tripmate has two pieces. First, it's a CD-ROM called Street Atlas USA, which contains virtually every street in the United States. I say "virtually" because the company says there are some missing roads. I've been using the thing for months in the most obscure rural places and have never found the merest byway DeLorme didn't have.

The software on this disk lets you find villages and lets you find street addresses. It's so accurate it will even show you which side of the street the hovel you are looking for is on. You can zoom in to see details or zoom out to see highways and how to get there.

Second, Tripmate has a little yellow GPS (Global Positioning Service) receiver and a six-foot cord which attaches the GPS receiver to the serial port on your laptop.

Here's how it works. You put four AA batteries into the receiver. You put the receiver on your car's dashboard. Plug it into your laptop, which you might want to plug into the cigarette lighter (since you shouldn't smoke anyway), which you have in your lap. It's better to do this as a passenger.

You start the DeLorme Street Atlas USA software and tell it to find where you are. A minute or two later, it throws a map up on the screen, with a little arrow. The green arrow means it's got a precise fix on a sufficient number of satellites. The yellow arrow means it's not sure. Poor baby.

The thing is incredibly accurate. It will tell you if you took a wrong turn or a right turn. It will let you figure out short-cuts. You'll never be lost again. This is the most amazing imaging technology I've seen in eons. I take it wherever I travel. My son and I have used it to find the best bicycling tours. We've used it to get out of traffic jams. And I'm just waiting for the first cop who tells me my wife was driving too fast. I'll have proof to six decimal places. I'm waiting to see his face. Thank you very much, DeLorme.