A method for operating a navigation system and a navigation system for a vehicle, a motor vehicle in particular, data concerning geographic positions of the vehicle being determined by a position-finding system and transmitted to an electronic data processing device having access to a database and a digital road map. Based on this data, the location of the vehicle on the digital road map is determined and route guidance instructions are output to the driver of the vehicle acoustically and/or visually. Also, information from the navigation system may be used for traveling routes selected by the driver himself before the start of the trip and to which the navigation system does not output any route guidance instructions. Routes selected by the driver himself are entered into the navigation system and stored by a route memory of the navigation system.