Can Anyone Recommend a Good GPS?

[TrainNut]

Some of them (for a small fee) will keep track of live traffic conditions and recommend alternative routes.

[BR60103]

Rob:
Whatever you buy, get it a month or more before the trip and try it out on trips you know. It's good to get used to how it directs you and find out some of its foibles -- like how it pronounces "QEW". A week into our trip we'd had enough of how ours pronounced "North" and changed the voice. And the way it gives you the first bit of the exit sign (Highway 10 South) and partway around the ramp tells you to take Highway 10 North.
I'm not sure how far ahead of time it warns you about exits -- less than 2 miles usually -- which may not get you out of the express lanes on the 401.
Another note: we had to make a left turn into our campground on a road with a boulevard in the middle. The GPS didn't know there was a gap and kept telling us to drive another quarter mile and make a U-turn.
They were on sale at Best Buy and Canadian Tyre in the flyers today.

[TrainNut]

Try Overstock.com. You can get some pretty good deals.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.overstock.com/search?keywords=gps&SearchType=Header">http://www.overstock.com/search?keyword ... ype=Header</a><!-- m -->
50% off is kind of hard to ignore.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.overstock.com/Electronics/TomTom-One-XL-GPS-Navigation-System-Complete-Kit/3469042/product.html">http://www.overstock.com/Electronics/To ... oduct.html</a><!-- m -->

[sgtcarl1]

As for driving underwater.....I don't know if it's been corrected or not, but a few years ago, you could get driving directions from New York, NY to Paris, France, on Google Maps!!!!

[BR60103]

Rob: every week there seem to be sales on GPSs in the paper. Best value this week was at WalMart, but everyone is selling my model for less than we paid last fall.

[Tom]

As a railroad trainer, I travel all over the USA and Canada and I wouldn't trade our Garmin Nuvi's for ANYTHING. I call mine Charlene, after my mom called to see how I was doing and I was driving through Iowa and she demanded to know who I had in the car talking. Alicia was out shopping with my mom. I had to call my Dad and after he quit laughing, he called and explained all about "Charlene".

[RobertInOntario]

As a railroad trainer, I travel all over the USA and Canada and I wouldn't trade our Garmin Nuvi's for ANYTHING. I call mine Charlene, after my mom called to see how I was doing and I was driving through Iowa and she demanded to know who I had in the car talking. Alicia was out shopping with my mom. I had to call my Dad and after he quit laughing, he called and explained all about "Charlene".

Thanks! We still haven't got around to buying one yet so this is helpful. We've noticed that most of our major retailers sell Garmins... Rob

[RobertInOntario]

Rob:
Whatever you buy, get it a month or more before the trip and try it out on trips you know. It's good to get used to how it directs you and find out some of its foibles -- like how it pronounces "QEW". A week into our trip we'd had enough of how ours pronounced "North" and changed the voice. And the way it gives you the first bit of the exit sign (Highway 10 South) and partway around the ramp tells you to take Highway 10 North.
I'm not sure how far ahead of time it warns you about exits -- less than 2 miles usually -- which may not get you out of the express lanes on the 401.
Another note: we had to make a left turn into our campground on a road with a boulevard in the middle. The GPS didn't know there was a gap and kept telling us to drive another quarter mile and make a U-turn.
They were on sale at Best Buy and Canadian Tyre in the flyers today.

That sounds like good advice -- to buy it at least a month ahead of time to test it out on well-known routes. TIme is ticking away so we will need to get it soon. Rob

[tomustang]

Thanks, Boppa. Both my wife & I have now heard good things about the Tomtom as well. I don't think we'd end up using the GPS a lot, just for really unfamiliar places or ultra-busy ones, like Montreal.
Thanks,
Rob

You don't have to use to GPS for just mapping, it's also good for distance timing, trip info, and best of all speedo monitoring and accuracy checks

[tomustang]

Anyway, my sister lives in Sacramento, and they have a boat that they usually use on Folsom Lake, but for the last few years the lake has been almost a mud puddle!

haha! When my wife brought me there I said "this isn't a lake, it's a pond!" She told me she hasn't been there for years and it looked so much different than it was. I think it was funny that there was a few stages of docks just going down to the launch site..

[RobertInOntario]

Thanks, Boppa. Both my wife & I have now heard good things about the Tomtom as well. I don't think we'd end up using the GPS a lot, just for really unfamiliar places or ultra-busy ones, like Montreal.
Thanks,
Rob

You don't have to use to GPS for just mapping, it's also good for distance timing, trip info, and best of all speedo monitoring and accuracy checks

Hmm, good point. This could also help us on this trip and other ones. Rob

[sgtcarl1]

Last night, when my wife returned from her trip to TN and KY, she said the GPS kept telling her to "proceed for 75 yards, and turn right." And it also kept telling her it was "recalculating." If she would have proceeded, she would have been in the neighbor's horse pasture! And if she would have turned right, she would have run into their house! But I wouldn't want to try to find my way around without it!!!!

[BR60103]

When we started back from the San Francisco area on our last trip, we weren't sure how far we would go and where the campgrounds were (or how good). For a guide out I punched in our previous Pomona campground and noticed that it gave an arrival time around 5:00 pm. So we decided we would try to make it and stayed there another week.
It is usually handy to have an idea of where you have to go; we use Streets and Trips for this. But S&T and SWMBO often have different ideas.

[Tom]

I like my Garmin Nuvi because it is a quick easy push of a few keys to find any kind of food I want, it finds gas stations, flower shops (trust me, you travel as much as I do, it helps to keep the peace at home), it'll find local stores of any kind (bored, driving around a strange town, I look for train shops with it), and best of all, it'll tell you what time you'll arrive at your destination and is pretty accurate.

Only thing I don't like about mine is it is very succeptable to cold air. It does NOT like to ride in a suitcase in the belly of the planes. I understand temperature gets pretty cold in those and I have fried two of them. At least that is what the Garmin Service center tells me, so after they repaired it once and then replaced it the second time, I carry it in my camera backpack in a crown royal bag with the laptop and camera. Yeah, another gadgetfor the overpaid, overglorified TSA Mall Cops to hassle you about at the airport concentration camp line, but I wouldn't give my Garmins up for ANYTHING.

[TrainNut]

It does NOT like to ride in a suitcase in the belly of the planes.

Whenever I travel by commercial airlines, I've always got mine on and up against the window as it's interesting to see where you're at in relation to the ground. The poor thing about had a heart attack though when we flew over the Grand Canyon. My Magellan is only good up to 35,000 feet and then fritzes out... something about not being able to triangulate its position at that altitude. The simpler hiking one we have though that we only use to mark coordinates kept track of me all the way from Phoenix to Anchorage. It's rather amusing to follow the speed and elevation of the Magellan while riding on a plane... 435mph, 34,000 feet and climbing...