In my recent hiking experience, a lot of trails in the NE--even in popular parks--are pretty poorly marked, and these days, virtually every hiking trip involves

In my recent hiking experience, a lot of trails in the NE--even in popular parks--are pretty poorly marked, and these days, virtually every hiking trip involves at least one point where the trail makes a sharp curve, but there's something that looks trail-ish that continues ahead, and it's only a few hundred feet down the line that you realize you might have missed the trail. The little handheld trail GPS my parents got me after my first such misadventure has proven incredibly useful for figuring out where I made the wrong move. (The first such misadventure, I was using the paper map to work out if there was a bend I missed).