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-   -   How useful is a GPS? (https://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hubb/navigation-maps-compass-gps/how-useful-is-a-gps-26961)

worstell 4 May 2007 19:12

How useful is a GPS?
 
I am debating whether to get a GPS. Can anyone tell me how helpful they really are (say for a USA to Argentia trip)? I have done Mexico and Costa Rica with paper maps with no problem. And I'm getting fed up with the whole digitial age too -- do i really need to take a digicam, cell phone, MP3 player, and GPS. I am travelling to see the world, not a small LCD screen. And I won't venture too far from paved roads. So would the GPS just be another gadget, or a practical tool for navigation?

John Ferris 4 May 2007 22:33

1 Attachment(s)
Paper maps are fine but how many paper maps can you carry ?
The garmin 60cx and 76cx both can hold all of the US and Canada road maps (down to street level) on a 2GB card.
I think you can get maps for CA and SA and keep them on another card.
Example of Evergreen.

javkap 5 May 2007 03:44

1 Attachment(s)
Hi
Argentina maps from “Proyecto Mapear” are 65MB include all auto-routing data.
Bob’s Wanderlust Worldmap for all the rest of the Americas are +/- 230MB
So you even can hold all in one 2 GB card


Attachment 409
Example of Ushuaia from Mapear Maps

Saludos.

Javier...
Dakar Motos

worstell 5 May 2007 06:41

I'm now convinced.

Lew&Anita 6 Jul 2007 17:43

You're only lost if you have a destination..
 
We've just completed 3 years through North, Central & South America with paper maps & a bar mounted compass.
Admittedly you can't have anorak discussions about how big you're RAM or LCD is but you also don't worry too much about losing your $5 map!

I think the main times where one would have paid off are trying to get through major cities or on unmarked dirt trails in salt flats or deserts.

If you want to 'loose plan' a trip mainly on tarmac roads through rural areas then it aint really a problem, there's usually only one road in your direction anyway.

If you're trying to break some Guiness Book record or want to disappear into the Atacama desert then getting lost may be relevant, you are always somewhere & the unexpected ends to the day's travel can be the most memorable.

AussieNat 26 Aug 2008 16:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lew&Anita (Post 142279)
you are always somewhere & the unexpected ends to the day's travel can be the most memorable.

:thumbup1:
I second that motion!

monsieur 26 Aug 2008 16:58

I have a Garmin Zumo but I also love maps.
I use the map for the main navigation but then rely on the GPS for the final few miles of my journey, mainly in cities.
There is a place for both of them in navigation but I would tend to trust my map and my own instinct more than I would trust any satnav.

pbekkerh 26 Aug 2008 18:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lew&Anita (Post 142279)
...........getting lost may be relevant, you are always somewhere & the unexpected ends to the day's travel can be the most memorable.

You can have both worlds.

Just turn off your GPS and get lost.

Then if it turns out to be, not so memorable after all, turn it on and get out of there. ;o))

Threewheelbonnie 26 Aug 2008 19:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by pbekkerh (Post 203990)
You can have both worlds.

Just turn off your GPS and get lost.

Then if it turns out to be, not so memorable after all, turn it on and get out of there. ;o))

Too right. The Sun Compass may add to the adventure, but I still like the safety net of having Mr. Garmin on the bars. It's also the fast way to get through places (city suburbs etc.) where the only adventures will be the sort you don't really want to have.

Andy

a1arn 27 Aug 2008 05:43

Even if you don't have maps for a particular small town, you could use the trackback feature to get back to the hotel. You'd get the general direction in which you are travelling, which can be a help even if your map is not too accurate.

Just because you have a GPS, does not mean that you have to peer at it day and night and do as it says. The trip computer is handy, too.

PocketHead 27 Aug 2008 07:33

I'm just using google maps on my mobile phone, works a treat. Only problem is that it isn't waterproof...

quastdog 27 Aug 2008 12:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lew&Anita (Post 142279)
I think the main times where one would have paid off are trying to get through major cities or on unmarked dirt trails in salt flats or deserts.

An especially good reason to use GPS - if you're only going to follow paved roads. There's almost no detail maps for cities - ones that show the entire city instead of just the detail for "central".

Using GPS to find your way through any city does make it worth it. In much of CA and SA, there's not a lot of road signs, the streets are never straight - they wind around and its easy to loose track of your north/south orientation - and the main roads have a habit of "disappearing" into neighborhoods. Just zoom out so you can keep an eye on the highway you want to exit on, keep following the bigger city streets that take you in the direction of the highway out the other side of town and - "no problema"!

jkrijt 27 Aug 2008 21:31

A GPS is very usefull in big cities but is is also safer on the open road because you don't have to look away from the road at the map in your tank bag. (A member of our GoldWing club had a fatal accident because he did not saw the traffic jam while he was looking at the map and ran into the stopped car at the end of the traffic jam)
I have my Tomtom on my handlebar, next to my left mirror so I can see it while not looking to far away from the road before me.

I never do detailed route planing. I just choose some cities and go from one to the other, telling the Tomtom to avoid freeways/take the shortest route
That almost always brings me on nice secondary roads that I like.
If it is time to fill the tank, I let the Tomtom show me the nearest gas station. The same with banks and hotels.
I did travel in the US, in South Africa and all over Europe without a GPS with no probelms but now I have one, I would not like to be without it. (But I always carry some paper maps too, as a backup)

NRH30 28 Aug 2008 09:39

I think its all down to personal preference rather than usefulness. I enjoy planning routes that will best suit me and using navigation skills to follow them, and getting as far away from cities and "safety nets" as possible is the main reason I travel, so for me its maps every time.

Just think how much fuel, food, etc. a few hundred quids-worth of gagdet can buy!

Sjoerd Bakker 28 Aug 2008 18:01

Ever the frugal one ( cheapskate if you like) I concur with Lew &Anita.
How much dough is really involved in getting these electronic on-board video games to work ? First you have to buy the basic gizmos to carry along, then no doubt it starts to pile up with the investments required in all the various regional map programs, the computers needed to reprogram all this stuff for your particular tastes in routes etc. etc. the newest upgrades. And then the computer skills you need to run all this stuff of which I have zilch and no desire to get into either, - more time and $$ better spent actually on a trip.
Then the question of who programmed all the stuff no doubt including their particular bias as to where the gas stations, services etc. are that they favor or get sponsorship from .
Unless one is really exploring into unpopulated roadless dangerous tracts , or on a paid commercial night run where speed and acuracy are important I rweally can't see much purpose in gettting such electronics.
There is entertainment in just wandering and exploring , budget plenty of time to enjoy it with a basic or detailed paper map

pbekkerh 28 Aug 2008 18:23

Why so negative?
All GPSs can be turned off if you want to ! You could even throw away your maps, to get the real adventure. And throw away your compas and take a sextant ;o))

Maps,compass and GPS are all means of navigation, you only have to decide how good a navigation you want:
1:100.000 maps or 1:20.000 ?
A big compass with compensation or a small compass on your watchband or a sextant?
30 papermaps or 2-3 overviewmaps and a GPS ?

You can buy extra gas for the GPS money, but then you could also save gas by using the GPS.
You could buy the GPS for the money saved on maps.
You will really appreciateit, that dark evening at 9pm in the rain, when it shows you the way to the next lodge :o) or when you find that little single track that'll take you into to the bush faraway from the mainroad(and hopefully back again)

sebjones906 28 Aug 2008 19:39

Certainly a GPS is a useful too. Is it a mandatory tool to travel, hardly. Lewis and Clark didn't need one.

It is also a toy. Bored and want to take a ride? It can invent your own personal Poker Run. Log in a destination at whatever mileage you want. Adjust the paramatures to the kind of roads you want to travel, calulate. If if comes up with roads you have already traveled, do custom avoids, so that it will calulate another route.

Now you can go to cousin Martha's house on roads that you didn't know existed and that you hadn't traveled.

If you get tired of looking at the screen, do what a previous person already said, turn it off.

gusonopa 26 Nov 2009 14:57

did any one tried to use a nokia n95??

i have one, i cannot afford to buy a new gps system but i can afford a gps reciver....i want to do argentina to california....i'd like to have it for main direction, then turn it off and explore and then back on when i don't know where to go.

Gecko 14 Jan 2010 06:23

MODERATOR COMMENT
Some posts have been deleted from this thread as they were descending into personal insults which are not tolerated on the HUBB - you know who you are . Cool it please !


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