There's a difference between staring down at a map on the passenger seat, and glancing at a screen to one side of the field of view with spoken directions.

When I've driven in Ireland, France, Belgium and Italy - particularly through strange cities, the SatNav has been a godsend. I'm a very good map reader - subscribe to the OS online mapping service - and can set a map and use one with the best of them. But the modern GPS systems are excellent.

I was in Rouen for lunch last year - I'd never been there before and had to find my way to a strange restaurant. Out came the mobile phone, on went the Google maps app, and I followed the dotted trail through a a busy city with no bother whatsoever.

There's also nothing nicer than taking a large-scale printed map and a compass and working my way through the countryside on a summer's day.

Horses for etc...