I'm not sure I entirely agree with Chris Scott's assessment of GPS in Africa (his May 9 post, above).

I ride a lot in out of the way places - Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, rural Croatia, etc. - all countries that have about the same quality of mapping data as Africa, in other words, WorldMap only, no street level detail.

I do spend a LOT of time in Africa as part of my "day job" (an aircraft pilot), and I take my portable GPSR - same one I use on my motorcycle, a Garmin 2650 - with me whenever I go to Africa.

I have found it VERY useful in remote, out of the way places such as Algeria, Libya, Sierra Leone, Liberia, rural Angola, south Sudan, and other "way off the beaten path" spots. I need to point out that its usefulness in these places is quite different than its usefulness in more developed countries with more detailed electronic mapping data.

In any African town or village, you won't find all the roads mapped - heck, most of the time you won't find ANY roads mapped - but if you set your GPS up to display the path you have followed (show your track), you kind of "write your own map" as you go. I have found that this greatly speeds up the process of getting oriented to a town or village. I can create waypoints for my house, office, the airport, the market, etc. and then I can stray off the main roads with a fair amount of confidence that I know where I am, and I know how to get back to familiar turf when I want to.

In Africa, much of the town and village layout relates to the position of rivers, lakes, gulches, and other topographical features that usually are depicted on WorldMap. So, not having street detail is not a big loss - I can always refer to the topographical detail to orient myself.

I would recommend that travellers to Africa take a GPS, even if it is just a simple unit with a built-in basemap. A unit that can accept upload of WorldMap data is, of course, much better. WorldMap coverage of all of Africa, with Europe south of the Alps tossed in as a bonus, only occupies 17 megs of storage space, which allows the whole continent to be loaded onto a GPS V, which has 19 megs of built-in memory.

Respecting durability - I've had a StreetPilot III for two years, put 70,000 km on it, all on the bike, crashed twice, including once where the entire weight of the front end of the upside-down 400kg bike was supported on the GPS, and never had any mechanical problems. I've just used stock Garmin mounts attached to Ram-Mount hardware.

Having a GPS with you is great for peace of mind, and as others pointed out, great for getting out of town when you are disoriented. Obviously, it will never replace paper maps (until the cartographic data reaches the same standard as current Europe and North America data), but it is as much a compliment to a paper map as a flashlight would be for riding at night.

PanEuropean

[This message has been edited by PanEuropean (edited 12 November 2003).]