Best Travel GPS?

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knick1959

Level 2 Member
I'll admit it, when GPSs first came out I had to have one. We used it for one of our first Florida trips (we've done too many of these now ... thank goodness I've discovered more adventurous travel ... not that there's anything wrong with Florida!). And it was revolutionary. I lent it to a coworker for his next trip. He called it a "marriage saver". Now everybody has one and they are almost automatics in some new cars.

We've been through a couple of generations, sticking almost exclusively with the Garmin brand. Our current Garmin is pretty old (my wife's newer Fusion has GPS built in), but it's helped us through England (although it was very slow in downtown London and I missed many turns because it told me too late. "Recalculating!") and in Italy. We purchased specific maps for these countries (and had trouble buying from eBay sellers ... don't think I'd try that again). In the last volley I had some trouble loading the new Garmin-provided maps (had to be Italy) and I'm betting adding anything new to this old Garmin might not be easy if even possible. We hit some kind of capacity limit - even with the new map mostly on a SD card it still had to store stuff in the internal GPS memory.

If only the rental car companies were more realistic with their GPS rental prices. Renting for a week+ trip costs enough to buy your own new model.

Looking forward to a trip to S. Africa in September and we're reviewing our electronics. Wife and I each picked up new cameras (shouldn't have and with the electronics ban may be taking our old ones! :)). Also looking at burner tablets that we can check with luggage and not worry much about. Then we will be driving some, although not all the time. What do we do about a GPS?

Looking for insight into what others do. If you have a GPS, does it accommodate switching country/regional maps well? Or do some feel better paying the rental car companies for ones ready for the region? Or, when that is too costly, does anyone buy a cheap, local GPS unit?

Will a US-ready GPS with add-on maps keep us from getting lost inside Kruger NP?

Thanks in advance.
 
Panache

Panache

Level 2 Member
Been using my phone with google maps with no issues for a few years now, including South Africa. With T-Mobile or Google Fi you get data coverage. Also offline maps can be downloaded, no need for separate devices IMO.

In Kruger proper you can buy a handy map at the visitor center as indeed no cell service in many areas.
 
K

knick1959

Level 2 Member
We have tried the phone GPS a couple of times. However, no cell coverage, no GPS (or so it seems for us). We've found Verizon doesn't come in at all while for example driving through the middle of Utah with no big cities around. It happened in Hawaii, too. Get into a town, sure. But even in the US boonies, and we go there often, not so dependable. Perhaps newer cell phones are better? Mine's very old now but my wife's is up to date. We'll try it in Denver and surrounding park areas (coming up) and see. A serious scientific comparison is needed!

Thanks for the replies.
 
heavenlyjane

heavenlyjane

Level 2 Member
Maps.me is the smartphone-based travel GPS app that o prefer. You download the specific regions you need and then you can use it as a GPS without the need for an internet connection.

I download the high latitudes when I fly overseas so I can track the plane's progress over the arctic region.
 
K

knick1959

Level 2 Member
heavenlyjane said:
Maps.me is the smartphone-based travel GPS app that o prefer. You download the specific regions you need and then you can use it as a GPS without the need for an internet connection.

I download the high latitudes when I fly overseas so I can track the plane's progress over the arctic region.
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So, it appears that perhaps we've been looking at our cell phones the wrong way. Depending completely on Google maps or Navigation (which again is Google maps) and when our live connection goes away, so does the GPS feature. I heard above "offline maps", so I'll research that AND thanks for the maps.me reference. I'll look that up too.

We used to actually turn our GPS on when flying and monitor where we were, too. Then I realized this probably isn't on their list of approved devices. Does your phone-based GPS work in airplane mode? It would be nice to see where you are.
 
heavenlyjane

heavenlyjane

Level 2 Member
knick1959 said:
So, it appears that perhaps we've been looking at our cell phones the wrong way. Depending completely on Google maps or Navigation (which again is Google maps) and when our live connection goes away, so does the GPS feature. I heard above "offline maps", so I'll research that AND thanks for the maps.me reference. I'll look that up too.

We used to actually turn our GPS on when flying and monitor where we were, too. Then I realized this probably isn't on their list of approved devices. Does your phone-based GPS work in airplane mode? It would be nice to see where you are.
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Yes, Maps.me does track flight progress when in airplane mode. It isn't perfect, for reasons I don't understand. Sometimes it plot position wrong or with a delay. Sometimes it performs perfectly.

Often I find I've downloaded the wrong map data.
 
Saphira2021

Saphira2021

Level 2 Member
But wouldn't using the phone based GPS even with downloaded maps use data? and if you don't have a plan that works overseas then you are out of luck?
 
K

knick1959

Level 2 Member
heavenlyjane said:
When I'm overseas, I turn off the cellular data option on my phone and Maps.me works fine.
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I've always thought the GPS was directly linked to DATA on phones. Now I see that, at least in our case, the DATA part was expecting google to constantly update the maps.
 
Matt

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
You can use GPS without data, I found a way to do it with my old ATT iPhone. The only catch was that you needed to load the map first. In my ghetto solution I checked the walking route from my hotel in the lobby, using their Wifi, then started walking with Airplane mode on, and the GPS tracked me (and pointed me in the right direction).

Now I just use Google Project Fi and don't worry about International Data.
 
italdesign

italdesign

Level 2 Member
knick1959 said:
However, no cell coverage, no GPS (or so it seems for us).
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That's what offline maps (from Google Maps) are for. Download map of the region in advance and you're good to go.

I use offline maps even when I have data, if I want to conserve battery and don't care about traffic info (which is not available offline).
 
currid7

currid7

Level 2 Member
We almost always get a paper map before our trip, at least so we can plan our time most efficiently. Most of our maps are folded up, scribbled on, tattered / torn in a box like diaries of our trips haha. I'm a little old school, but always feel better with paper in my hand. We use our phones too, but for most international trips they're not much use (we haven't put a lot of effort into offline maps, since we use paper ones a lot). I'll also do a good amount of research beforehand, knowing how far a walk things are getting a general layout of our area. This was extremely helpful in Tokyo, as I had a basic idea of what subway lines / trains we would be using the most and how far walks were from stops.

We'll use offline maps on our next trip so I can get a feel for it, but I'll always have a soft spot for a paper map I can pull out and unfold.
 
Panache

Panache

Level 2 Member
I have found if you load the directions to google maps on your phone, it will load the whole route so if you go offline along the way it is no big deal, as long (big if) you don't do a wrong turn where it needs to recalculate the route from the server.

Also, the route calculated by the GPS may not be the most scenic/where you want to go or stop along the way.

For the reasons above, we also always make sure to buy a road atlas or a map of the general area we are traveling in at a gas station or tourist info center before hitting the road. If no cell signal in remote areas, you can use the paper map to route to the destination town. Once you get back to an area with service/wifi, you can load the final turn-by-turn turn directions to the hotel/attraction.

In SA, we did not load directions all the time and once got going the wrong direction but that was quickly resolved with the paper map (albeit ended up a 1 hour detour).

The offline apps are also a good alternative. So is pulling over and asking for directions :)
 
italdesign

italdesign

Level 2 Member
Panache said:
as long (big if) you don't do a wrong turn where it needs to recalculate the route from the server.
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We made a wrong turn in Canada a few days ago, and it rerouted just fine. Pretty sure I was offline. Logically, I don't see why it would need to contact the server to reroute. It just needs to know where you are and where you are going to calculate the shortest/best route, which GPS and preloaded maps provide.
 
Felix

Felix

Level 2 Member
I second using your phones gps with google maps and the area you plan on visiting already saved
 
J

Josh000

Level 2 Member
If headed to a country where restrictions are placed on google maps data being used offline (Cuba for example), the Galileo app fills in the gap nicely. It was a lifesaver for us.
 
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