Why not just get through the PPL, and then buy a GPS. A decent moving map GPS (anything lesser is not worth getting IMHO) is about £500 which is peanuts on the scale of flying costs, for anyone who flies enough to keep their license never mind staying current.

Unless you stick to your local area, and good visibility, visual nav will fail you eventually no matter how good you are.

I'll re-iterate what has sort of been said already and what I think I said in a different forum.

That is if you don't know where you are tell us (ATC that is) especially if its a radar unit. At East Mids we just a bout always have a spare controller sat next to us so even if the frquencuy sounds manic, if you say your lost we'll put you to a different frquency and find you and either watch you to destination or hand you over to someone who can. Or like has been said call D&D.

The key here is that getting lost is not illegal, even if you declare a pan-infinging CAS quite definitely is!! We are here to help.

On a separate matter, I don't think a moving map GPS is essential at all. I use an aviation one that has aifields and VOR's and nothing else. I set the route I have planned on the map set it running and use it as a confindence check-it stops you convincing yourself you are not where you should be (which reading many of the honest stories above sound like a frequent cause of problems) and it is also useful if during a zone transit for example you get deviated by ATC as well as the usual diversion, estimate update type functions at which GPS' excel.

Ref.: GPS, etc..
 

I've just, since getting PPL, started using a handheld GPS. For me it is useful that it is handheld, since that prevents me from using it as a primary navaid..

I feel confortable with radio aids + DR and ground to map - though that does not mean that I do not occasionally get lost briefly. Most recently last Tuesday near Gamston - but a combination of ground to map + radio aids, and a quick look at the GPS map display for reassurance rapidly reorientated me.

I like to feel that I wouldn't hesitate to call a radar unit or D&D if I were completely lost or disorientated: the fact that there is a human voice of whom I could ask any relevant supplemental questions seems like a major reassurance to me - and a service vital in the extreme.

DRJAD.

Surely better to head SW to the coast and follow it....bit of a long way though....but t'other would be longer still and take you through LTMA and indeed Heathrow control area (and roughly overhead the Houses of Parliament). Oh hold on....did you mean the Dartford crossing?