I really love my GPS and my topo maps and compass and bring them on even short trips that I'm familiar with. I don't always use them, but I almost always bring them.

Two things we have in abundance here in the Ozarks is terrain and dense forests. It's pretty easy to get confused and lost in an unfamiliar area for those who don't pay attention going in. I've had to guide several hikers back to their cars here over the years.

And I had to learn myself how to pay attention. Some of the first longer hikes I did here I scared myself on the way back by not knowing exactly where I was because nothing looked familiar. I had to learn to make a habit of turning around now and then and taking a good look behind me so I knew what to look for and recognize it on the way back.

A GPS that has your starting point "waypointed" or track recorded from where you started on it can make it really easy to get back fast, and that can come in really handy.

Over the years of hiking here I've gotten a lot better at reading topo maps and figuring out where I am on those, so I really don't need a GPS, but they are just too cool not to want to bring. One of the great things is being able to waypoint spots of interest and save them in a mapping app like Garmin's Basecamp. I have spots waypointed from hikes I did years ago that I would have forgotten about otherwise and it's fun to download a track when I get back and display it on a map and go over the data they record.

A GPS can really help you fine tune you mapping skills too. I still take out my topo map and compass and triangulate my position using terrain features and then check my position against my GPS map. I can honestly say I've never been far off but it's still nice to get the affirmation and humbling when you're further off than you thought, which incentivizes one to be more precise, and I have become more precise with that incentive to motivate me.