Who uses a GPS on rides?

After my incident at Jim Thorpe where i completely lost my bearings and was by myself, i decided i think i want a GPS. I think it'd be more fun to just explore without worrying how far from the car i am and plus it'd be nice to loop around without having to just go so far and turn back to retrace my steps in reverse. So who runs what? I was thinking something in the Garmin eTrex series, just not sure if i need expandable memory like in the Legend HCx, or if i can go with a cheaper model. Or a compass. Haha