I hate driving in LA

I suppose every seasoned traveler has an achilles’ heel; mine happens to be driving in LA - even though I lived there for 2 years in 2002 - ’03 with no problems whatsoever. 

So how did it start?

The fear and frustration began with over confidence.  Two years ago I started traveling on my own to LA.  I marched out there thinking, I’ve lived here, I know my way around.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  I got lost and was late for a meeting.  The second trip I got lost, and the third trip!  There may have been a fourth but my humility has lost count.

So there you see, fear built on statistics.

My friends laugh and say, how can you travel the world, live near Miami and be afraid of LA?  Simple, I loathe getting lost in traffic, especially fast moving traffic.

One friend suggested a GPS; I did that the last trip and it directed me to get OFF the highway I was supposed to stay on and into downtown LA traffic and I could not reroute the dumb thing fast enough to figure out where I needed to go!  It was horrible.

I learned that listening to a robot does not work for me.  I needed to go old fashioned and actually look at a map, learn the roads and know where I was going. 

I discussed the trip with my boss who gave me detailed directions, which I studied profusely before leaving the rental lot.  And you know what?  I didn’t get lost!

Not sure this makes me like driving in LA BUT I have slightly more confidence!