that's handy, thanks.

I'm looking at Garmin maps at the moment. There is a little confusion as what is the best option. JUST for Morocco.

TOPO North Africa v5 Light
PART NUMBER 010-D1513-03
£ 19.99

https://www.garmin.com/en-GB/p/701600

What does "Light" mean. Features missing ?? It doesn't say it's routable.


From Garminworldmaps there is:

Morocco Map for Garmin
14.95 €

https://www.garminworldmaps.com/product/morocco-map/

Or a routable Topo map for €20

https://www.garminworldmaps.com/product/morocco-topo/

Is this a thirdparty company ? Not much detail in the product apart from that it says it's from 2023.


Then there is Garmin's

City Navigator® Middle East and Northern Africa NT
Download
PART NUMBER 010-D0748-00
£89.99

Which is the option they give you if you say you are riding a motorcycle.

I've found earlier versions of Topo Light more than adequate for exploring Morocco.
Detail elsewhere (Sahara) is much thinner. All based on OSM

That said, the 2023 must be the same, scaled down, less GB and perhaps improved.
Screenshots look good and it's cheaper!
Well spotted, may try it myself.

Just bought - only 160mb - will review later this week.

There is a review of V.4 here :rofl::smartass:

https://sahara-overland.com/tag/garm...-light-review/

Or for free if you can load them on your device

Africa North OSM Topo Routable | GMapTool

This is what I use as default now when in Morocco but I havent tried Garmins options. The link above was last updated in October and with the speed of road building out there its worth getting the latest update on maps possible.

CN wont help on the pistes much

Well that was a waste of 15 euros and an hour.
Usual Garmin glitches. Only good thing is I have no hair left to pull out.

It might be a matter of cartographic prefs, but after a quick look the €15 map lacks contours or relief to visualise the terrain, misses out some roads that are 5 years old and has few town names. Below, Jebel Saro.

Above all, like all these 'amateur' maps the piste hierarchy would be deeply confusing to a beginner in Mk (good for guidebook writers ;-).
This format of marking every peak elevation might be easy to do automatically but just covers the map in crap. Turn the detail down and useful data is also lost.

Spend another fiver on the Topo Light (assuming it has not got worse), or spend nothing at all on OSMs and feel less sour.

Or just get a Gaia sub on a cheap tablet and flog your Garmin.
You can import a selective slab of ESRI sat as a layer and WYSIWYGet.
I think I'm heading that way.

How does it look on the Montana screen?

The Open Topo Maps look fantastic on a laptop but once on the Montana have too much clutter to be useful and the contours are thicker than the pistes

Judge for yourself. I don't think you'll be distracted by clutter on this map ;-)
(fyi, this is on max detail).
All my other Mk maps are better, Topo and the freebies.

I'll stick with my free OSM maps then :rofl:

Now if I could just find some that looks like the Giaia version on the Montana!

I presume Gaia works on phones too.
I was travelling with a bloke whose job it also is to record accurate tracklogs and all the rest (ie; not just follow them) and he has not looked back from going from Montana to Gaia/phablet. First few uses he kept the Garmin alongside until Gaia proved itself dependable and easy to use.

Tbh, none of the digital maps, free or paid, are that good.
I was loading up my Montana with dozens of traced tracklogs to drive later and had to manually sort, rename and delete some.
Often I couldn't tell where some randomly named track was, zooming in and out and flipping between 6 Mk maps to find the most legible background. Part of the problem is the playing card sized screen of course. In the end it was easiest to recognise the shape of the track off my Google My Maps master page.
One task that made this easier – I suspect everyone knows this except me – is using the fastest Class 10 card.
There can be loads of stuff packed on the face of a microSD card but it hardly ever says 'Class 10'. Whatever 32GB Sandisk I had in there looks the same but may have been the first I ever bought (Class 3?). Garmin say use 4-10. Montana is loads faster now with the latest 8-quid Sandisk.

I often run various apps alongside the garmin as a comparison trial. Gaia is the closest to a decent overland navigation tool there is.

But it has a steep learning curve, although getting you head around Garmin initially was probably as bad.

I'm still not convinced its sensible to rely on a phone for everything.
1 - Phone break easily, I've got through several over the years
2 - Running them for navigation uses a lot of power, even being in a 4x4 the power in = power out at best, so keeping them powered can be a issue. The other problem I had was the phone overheating despite being in front of an ac vent. On newer iPhones overheating stops/slows charging

When my old Montana died, I did consider switching completely to apps but I'm very glad I upgraded to the new 700i. When that dies phones/tablets may be a more viable option for my use. Particularly with the incoming sat comms on iphones and android devices

I agree all eggs on one phone is a bad idea on the road, but I just bought a used iphone off a mate for 25 quid.

Like you say, not as robust as a Montana brick built for sat nav only, certainly on a bike.
Overheating is a good point. I wonder if that is particular to jam-packed phones as opposed to tablets?
I asked matey and he said overheating is not a problem with his iPad unless he leaves it on the dash in the sun

Anyway, will give Gaia/tab a spin alongside Montana 680 for logging.

Sorry I’m new to Gaia, what would be the best maps for Morocco and where would I get them from?

The default map Gaia Topo works very well. In fact I think its one of th ebest rendered OSM maps out there (I just wish I could find an equivalent to load onto my Garmin)

It isn't completely upto date for some reason. Despite being OSM based it doesn't show the new reservoir north of Boudnib while other osm maps do

Ok, thanks for the info