GPS Map options for Australia NZ
 

Hi folks.
We're planning on a trip to Australia and New Zealand between March and May 2019. Unfortunately, this trips in a car, not my BMW R1200RT.

I have a North American BMW Navigator V which I'm happy with. I'm trying to figure out what my best GPS options are for a road trip between Sydney and Melbourne. Maybe Great Ocean Road. Later we'll be doing some trips in New Zealand, North Island.

On a recent trip from Seattle to Northern California along the coast and east to Lake Tahoe and back through Reno Nevada, I tried to use my IOS Maps and Google Maps on my iPhone (in a rental car with Apple Car Play and built in WIFI) and didn't find that they worked that great. Spotty cellular coverage especially in the mountains. What can I expect down under?

Am I better off with a full download of maps that will work regardless of cellular connection? Full Garmin maps seems to be about $230CAD.
For that price, I could almost buy a cheap GPS with preloaded Australian maps and throw it out when I'm done?

Thanks. John.

doh
Free maps are available! Called 'Open Street Maps' or OSM by many but actually OSM is 'just' a data base and others manipulate the information into maps. These OSM Garmin maps are avalible from various sources.

Suggest you download a copy for your area of the world and check them out.

Then when you see how good they are, download for Australia and New Zealand.

See
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...eet-maps-64135

We've used GoogleMaps all over Australia (including the Kimberly and the middle) and found them good - they key is to download the data in advance so that you can access it despite having no connectivity.

HERE Maps
 

I recommend free offline HERE Maps and the matching phone app HEREwego https://wego.here.com/?map=-37.8103,144.9544,10,normal>
Why?
HERE maps are built into 85% of factory fitted cars in North America and Europe, covers many countries and is owned by Audi, BMW, Daimler, Intel, Bosch Continental and Pioneer. The maps are used in Alpine, Garmin, Oracle and Amazon.com, Microsoft Bing, Facebook and Yahoo! Maps.
Available in 196 countries and its features include turn-by-turn walking navigation, offline availability, 3D landmarks and indoor Venue Maps for 100,000+ unique buildings in 87 countries
I do not use my GPS receiver/maps anymore, but use my phone (the one I carry, anyway) with a $30 ruggedised case or Quadlock kit and HEREwego app.

HERE Maps
 

Google Maps are consumer grade, not commercial grade (see earlier) post.
You can download all of Australia (or the rest of the World) to your phone and use the maps offline for free. I found Google download (area) limitations most annoying - in particular when there is no coverage to download more - https://www.telstra.com.au/coverage-...s/our-coverage

HERE Maps
 

Open Street Maps are "volunteer quality", Google Maps are "consumer quality" HERE Maps are "commercial quality" - all are FREE for private use.

Given that choice - to me there is a clear one.

Phones ...
Cell phone coverage in Australia is not great, the advertising goes something like 90% coverage... but that is 90% of the population... ~30% of the area. On your road trip you can expect fairly good coverage, it is a major route .. but there will be black spots. Best to have off line maps ready.
Best national coverage is Telstra, they are not cheap with many competing plans. https://www.telstra.com.au/coverage-...s/our-coverage

For your iPhone .. 'mapout' is OSM based and gets good reviews.

Do your testing in your local area to see how they all go. Once you have decided download the stuff before you leave home and check that out too.

------------------
Note that my first posting was for your Garmin GPS.. a free map for it.

Thanks for all your suggestions. I'll try some of them out locally and see which ones measure up to my 'Commercial Grade' Garmin.

Much appreciated.

I would walk into a Aus/NZ store and buy a cheap ($150) car gps. It will come preloaded with the correct maps, all ready to go. It may not be capable of loading too many waypoints/following off road trails etc but will get you from address to address which by the sound of it is what you want. You'll probably save you a heap of time and trouble that way.

Cell coverage is patchy in parts of NZ and Aus so gps is probably the way to go.

I'll thrown another "volunteer quality" option into the ring.

I'm having a good time with Kurviger . It also uses that "nasty" OSM data, and gives many options for routing.

Most tools won't give you many options between Sydney and Melbourne other than the highway without you forcing intermediate points. Kurviger can throw up many interesting options.

If you're heading via Canberra on your way you can borrow my car Garmin for your trip; it'll have "commercial quality"... - post it back afterwards. I never use it now (nor the Garmin for the moto, nor the one for the pushy) - always just use my phone and, mostly, OSM data.

Definitely Great Ocean Road! :thumbup1:


Mal.

For a potential one off trip, I'd go with some good old fashioned paper maps.
A few reasons - you can mark on the map your trip, make notations about photos, etc.
Grabbing a paper map and looking at it and photos is a great way to have a nostalgia trip later on, somehow looking at a GPS track and scrolling through a saved route just does not do it for me. Will you still have that GPS track in 20 years to show your kids or grandkids? Will you still have digital photos?
I've still got my paper maps from a round Australia trip in 1980, trips around Europe and overland from London to Melbourne and love to have a look at photos and compare them to now.
The larger view of paper maps give you the opportunity to plan and visit places that the GPS will just bypass - often by just a few kms - and you end up missing something that could well be the highlight of the trip.
Plenty of paper maps (road atlasses) show routes that are scenic, show towns that can have some quirky interest, show National Parks, etc.
If you need GPS to find an address, just use Google Maps on your phone.