Imagine being in a sailing boat in the Southern Ocean, 3000 miles from the nearest land and wanting to know which way to go. The GPS will tell you where you are and which way you need to go to reach your objective, and many other things depending on the model.
I have a Garmin Etrex that I use as a "receiver" this recognises anything up to 12 satellites at a time and works out where I am on the globe. The clever bit is that I connect the GPS to my laptop, this has Geo-referenced maps of the country that I'm in, and the GPS locates my position and shows it on the map. For all intents and purposes the map is just a "picture" of where I am, be it land or sea, and my position within the picture. As I move along the GPS will "track" my movement and I can determine whether or not I'm travelling in the right direction. Yes I also have road maps of Europe, and I do use the GPS with them too, and in the UK. In fact only yesterday I had to go to and address in Taunton, I looked it up at home and pin-pointed it on Microsoft Autoroute, and put the laptop in the car. Arrived in Taunton, had a coffee, plugged in the GPS and switched on the laptop. Two minutes later I could see where I was and where I needed to go. I didn't have to find the road that I was on, on a road map, the GPS did that for me, all I had to do was follow the "green line", created earlier, and in five minutes I had arrived at my destination.
Navigating is a skill, creating waypoints, plotting, dead reckoning and watching the stars, as well as working out your position by taking bearings, however, many people don't have those skills and don't want to learn them. The GPS removes the guess work.
Just bear in mind, all electronics can fail!
My two penny's worth,
Kevin

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www.4x4-travel.co.uk

Kevin,

That was true up to the 90s in the last century. In the 21st century, navigating is also a skill, only it requires different instruments. Many people don't have the skill of using modern navigation tools and don't want to learn them. It doesn't make a paper map or a sextant more useful than it actually is, just as it doesn't make a virtue out of the reluctance to learn new skills.

Correction, all things can fail. The fact that something can't be fixed with a hammer doesn't make it fail more often. Cheap electronics fail more often than high quality electronics. Cheap electronics, on the other hand, can be had by the dozen, hence failure rate is not the essential parameter.

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Roman (UK)

And they need power, too ,always a tenuous thing to rely on - but this pro'ing and con'ing will fall down against the desire of a bloke (or lady...) to have a new thing which bleeps or flashes
. I rest my case!

Roman,
I wasn't looking for an argument with a superior human being/traveller, I was merely trying to put across, in layman's terms, what a GPS does. I have never tested my navigational skills in a difficult situation, and I do use, and indeed swear by, my GPS when in Tunisia, however I can read a map.
I do not know how I can ever apologise for daring to comment on something that obviously is out of my league, but please accept my best attempt.
If you read your post I'm sure you'll be of the same opinion as me - it was completely un-necessary.
Kevin

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www.4x4-travel.co.uk

Kevin,

This is not an argument, unless you want to see it that way. I just find it amazing that almost 15 years after a complete constellation of 24 satellites was put in orbit, the global positioning system is still discussed in terms of a novelty that needs to be explained in simple terms, even to people who most benefit from it, and seen as "a new thing which bleeps or flashes".

"Vivere non est necesse, navigare necesse est". Remember?

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Roman (UK)

Roman, please realise the context of the phrase "a new thing which bleeps or flashes" was in relation to any (new) gadget, whether useful or not, which people feel they "need". I'll try to be more correct in future