I am usually not one to turn down a walk in the woods or a trip to a place I’ve never been, so I’ve been lost a few times in my life (luckily always very briefly- search and rescue has never been notified!). I own my share of paper maps, which are great to look at on the kitchen table to plan a trip, but can be bulky to pack and tough to get out in the middle of nowhere. I have never had a GPS unit, so when I got the opportunity to try out the Garmin Oregon 400t ($499.99), I jumped on it!

The Garmin Oregon 400t is a very rugged, waterproof GPS unit made for the great outdoors. An electronic compass and barometric altimeter give quick, accurate information. It has a 3-inch diagonal color touchscreen and comes preloaded with topographic maps of either the U.S. or Europe and 3-D map views. Sailing/boating maps, detailed city maps, road maps, and better topo maps can be purchased, as well as specialty maps like equestrian trails and Tuscany TrekMaps. You can use your Oregon 400t for hiking, cycling, boating and more, and send information on waypoints, favorite hikes and geocaches wirelessly to similar units. The unit has so many bells and whistles, I can’t cover them all here, so please check out the website.

Now for the important part: how did it work? The Garmin Oregon 400t is billed as having an “easy to use interface”, which I found to be absolutely true. The menus are intuitive so you don’t have to read a thick instruction book or spend much time hunting around on the screens before you are ready to use the basic functions. Five minutes out of the box and we had everything we needed figured out! (That’s not usually a reaction I have to electronic gadgets, so it was really a treat!) I was impressed at the level of detail and accuracy of the maps, and the fact that they updated very rapidly as I went along the trail. The trip odometer and speedometer were great for cycling. My favorite feature, the “Where To?” menu, had many points of interest listed, several of which I’d never heard of. It gave our family an opportunity for discovery right in our own area! And my kids really got a kick out of seeing where they were on the “hiking computer” (their name for the Garmin) which provided incentive for them to go farther.

There were a few things I wasn’t quite so crazy about. This Garmin goes through batteries very quickly (they lasted only a few hours for us), and unfortunately there isn’t a way to recharge the entire unit. Also, if you want to use the Garmin Oregon 400t for serious cycling, you should get the bike sensor ($60.00), mount ($9.99) and heart rate monitor ($60.00). On top of that, the extra, more detailed maps will set you back a bit- the US. 24K Topo map costs $99.99, U.S. Inland Lakes- West costs $116.65, and the city navigation map for North America is $99.99. Individual cities around the world start at $9.99. There are a lot of add-ons for this GPS! But if your passion is navigating waterways, foreign travel, geocaching or other outdoor pursuits, it may be well worth the extra cost.

With the Garmin 400t, it’s easy to explore the world either nearby or across the globe, and it gives me an extra sense of security knowing I’ll easily find my way home again. And such a cool gadget gives me extra incentive to get outside! If you’re in the market for a GPS unit, the Garmin 400t is definitely worth a look.