Routing preferences must be set for ones needs. Unfortunately, most preferences are not robust enough to satisfy everyone. My advice is to use mapquest, google maps, Street Atlas or other mapping software to plan a route to assure that you don't get into a jam. I have used many different GPS receivers over the years and they all give bad directions some times. So be ware and don't be trusting :-) BTY the best GPS receiver I have used is the Garman IQ3600 which is obsolete. Too bad they stopped producing it.