My Kingdom for a GPS

Or, should I say, how to navigate my kingdom without one.

We're driving down to Lucena, Quezon next weekend for a good friend's wedding, and I have no idea how to get there. Well, that's a little exaggerated - I have some idea, but I'd only been down that road once sometime in the early part of the century, en route to see the whale sharks in Donsol. Plus Larry was doing the driving (and plotting the route to Sorsogon for future butanding seekers), so I didn't pay very much attention. I would ask him, but my human GPS is in NYC as I write so that doesn't work out for me too well.

I know Northern Luzon like the back of my hand, but Southern Luzon is a mystery to me. Which is pretty much to my own detriment, as I found that part of the country lovely in its own way and had promised myself long ago to go further down than my usual Batangas/Mindoro destinations. I'm finally keeping that promise, but how the heck do you get to Quezon?

Just take the Sto. Tomas road, and head on to San Pablo, said my Dad. Uh ok, thanks, I think. I gotta figure out where those places are first. Unfortunately, the Philippines has yet to develop a decent map engine, and I've yet to know about a local car GPS that can actually direct you to your destination. For now, the best we can do is rely on sites like waypointsdotph, or, much to my delight, multimap. Or, just like the olden days, stop every few kilometers and ask the locals to point us in the right direction.

Speaking of locals - wait a minute! I've overlooked something (a realization that hit me just when I was typing this). Johanna, who's making the trip down with me, is from the Bicol region in Southern Luzon herself, even further south than Quezon...so what the heck was I worried about?! Talk about a useless exercise in unnecessary aggravation.

But I still want that car GPS. Grrrrghh.