Before GPS, you could get directions via a navigation hotline. 1963

    by XGramatik

    10 Comments

    1. Knowing I only remember the first couple of turns someone tells me when I ask for directions I’d be calling these folks back….a lot. 😝 Pen and paper wouldn’t help as I can’t read my own writing either.

      …I’d also be even more lost as I’d have to go find a phone booth…nightmare! 🤓

    2. That’s a map of the Netherlands. I can only assume the calls were coming from the Netherlands and not New York.

    3. froggertthewise on

      I imagine most of these conversations started with at least 15 minutes of someone being unable to communicate their current location.

    4. — “Hello? I need help. ”

      — “Hello. Where are you?”

      — “I don’t know, i am somewhere!”

      — “What do you see?”

      — “I see a store”

      — “where do you need to go?”

      — “home”

      — “where’s home?”

      — “i don’t know”

    5. We used to call or mail the AA with a route we needed to do and they would calculate and mail a printed copy of the route for you to use. Then we had things like Autoroute on the PC so we could do this ourselves and print it out. I thought I was the tech king when I had a PocketPc connected to a GPS receiver in the car so I could navigate with TomTom.

    6. Prestigious-Case936 on

      Even better some automobile associations could also provide “pilots” who would meet you somewhere in their car and you would follow them in your car to the destination you designated. I used it once when I transferred interstate as a teenager. We are talking late 1980’s. Seriously I am not making this up.

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