Sat Nav Advice for USA

N111BJG

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In July I am taking my first trip to Califormia to see my newly married son. i'll being renting a car, but have no clue where anything is so want a satnav.
The options appear to be
Rent one with car
Buy one from Amazon US
Buy US map for my Garmin
Use my iPhone or will the data used be extortionate?
Anyone got any tips on what to do
 
Buy a cheap one over there.

From memory - the ones that you can rent with the car - will not let you play with the unit, on the move. even if it is the passenger - the menu/buttons are disabled until the car is stationary.

Or - get the mapping for your current unit??

Al
 
CoPilot works offline on the iPhone and worked brilliantly on my tour of California and Oregon last year :thumb2 It was only about £10 or £14.99 for the HD version (not sure what the difference is)
 

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We bought a cheap TomTom in America last year, far cheaper than renting one with the car (about $10 a day if I remember).

One problem I had with that was that I can't update the maps at home here in the UK because when I log on to the TomTom site it doesn't recognize the model that I got in the US. I tried emailing them a week before going to California last month and was given a case number but never got an answer despite repeatedly asking them and quoting the case number and telling them that I really needed to get it sorted before departing.

We used it with little bother in spite of the fact that it was out of date, but the bastard thing kept on telling me to update it as it was insisting that it was 18 months out of date. :blast As a matter of fact I did try to update it in one of the hotels, it was going to take three hours to download to the computer, that's right- the hotel's computer, and after that I was to reconnect the TomTom to it for another three hours for it to load. Well, balls to that, I certainly wasn't going to sit by the computer in the hotel foyer for three hours of my holiday. And of course it carried on reminding me regularly that it needed updating for the rest of the trip.

Another problem we had happened in San Francisco where it kept on losing its signal, SF is very hilly and Downtown in the streets between the tall buildings it kept on jumping about and getting lost, and it was totally useless when we tried to find Twin Peaks and we just gave up. Now whether that was the fault of the bargain-basement model or not I don't know- perhaps their top-of-the-range model might have been just the same, but I thought I'd mention it. Likewise the issue with the screen brightness; we had rented an open-top Mustang and the screen was difficult to read when we had the top down, but again perhaps I was expecting too much.

As for being unable to play with the fixed Sat Navs, we have had a few in the past but I don't remember that being the case. You could get lucky and find your car comes equipped with one despite not having rented one. :thumb
 
Navmii USA. Free to download and has offline mode so doesn't use your roaming data to work. The offline mode has limited functionality compared to the online mode....but works just fine and there are free wifi hotspots just about everywhere in the US so you can usually find a place to get online if needs be.

We got back from Florida a few weeks ago and it worked a treat for us


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Navmii USA. Free to download and has offline mode so doesn't use your roaming data to work. The offline mode has limited functionality compared to the online mode....but works just fine and there are free wifi hotspots just about everywhere in the US so you can usually find a place to get online if needs be.

We got back from Florida a few weeks ago and it worked a treat for us


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This :thumb
 
CoPilot also allows you to plot routes with waypoints and save them, so it'll take you down all the scenic roads if you want. I pre-planned all my routes and it worked perfectly, even in the urban sprawl of SF and Sacramento

If you have an iPhone, it's a bargain :thumby:
 

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I was thinking of getting a cheap Satnav from Walmart $50.
I like google maps on my phone. I haven't checked my data usage plan yet but the route could be plotted using the motel wifi and then use the off line maps. I think!
 
I was thinking of getting a cheap Satnav from Walmart $50.
I like google maps on my phone. I haven't checked my data usage plan yet but the route could be plotted using the motel wifi and then use the off line maps. I think!


Correct I have also used this method in the states. Works well.
 
In July I am taking my first trip to Califormia to see my newly married son. i'll being renting a car, but have no clue where anything is so want a satnav.
The options appear to be
Rent one with car
Buy one from Amazon US
Buy US map for my Garmin
Use my iPhone or will the data used be extortionate?
Anyone got any tips on what to do

Try CoPilot on your iPhone, I use it all the time in the car. Can't recall the cost but not a lot, around £30 for all of Europe and then a further £7 for the USA & Canda I think. ( look on the App Store ). No data costs as the maps are stored on your phone.
 
Anone tried Waze? I haven't tried it myself but a couple of taxi drivers had it when we visted the US last year, they both said that all the other drivers in their respective firms had gone over to it from GPS. Its maps are far more up-to-date and gives real time road situations, traffic congestion and road works and so on. Have a look at it on Google.
 
Put open street maps on your current unit. Works great and is free.
 
Ask yourself do you really need a satnav? Most routes in the US are blindingly obvious and you can get free maps locally.

Use something like Open Street maps on your phone for finding hotels etc but for the most part, opening a map and looking at your route is the best way in my opinion obviously.

Use aeroplane mode on your phone just to pick up wi fi and do not use data roaming unless you are sure your plan covers you stateside.
 
The great thing about the States is that the natives speak (a form of) English! You can always ask! However, a sat nav can be very handy if you want to pre plan some routes or if you are looking for hotels, food etc or just find your way back to drop off the hire car. I took my wheezy old 550 to the states recently and used OSM maps. Downloading them was easy and everything worked fine.
 
Ask yourself do you really need a satnav? Most routes in the US are blindingly obvious .

I know the yanks are friendly & welcoming, but I hadn't expected road signs all the way from the airport saying "Jack's house this way".

I'll try some of the download options & report back in a few weeks. I've also have the kind offer of a loan of a sat nav so I can compare.

Thanks to all for useful advice
 
Well I'm now back from my US trip.

I'd say a some form of satnav device is essential.

I got the usual bollocks from Hertz "I'm sorry sir but the car you've reserved was returned late & won't be full prepared for re-hire for an hour or so, but we've got an upgrade for only $10 a day" After some argy bargy which involved using my fictitious AA membership to achieve a 10% discount on the whole price, a deal was struck. $245 for 8 days unlimited mileage rental of a Nissan Altima. Including taxes, but no insurance which I arranged separately.

The upgrade car had a Hertz NeverLost GPS device fitted, which was OK but does not have any traffic reports or avoidance capability. My son soon got bored of that & we mainly used the Waze App on his phone. Which in some ways was actually not as good as the Google Maps directions as Waze wanted constant connectivity. It made a difference travelling through LA & suburbs, but not so essential traversing the Mojave Desert.

I've no idea how much data Waze eats up as he had an unlimited data package on his phone.

The sat nav I borrowed, being a Garmin Nuvi 660 with a USA Western States map on inserted SD card was fine, but again no traffic reports / avoidance, so only used once to get to the Hertz depot.
 
Well I'm now back from my US trip.

I'd say a some form of satnav device is essential.

I got the usual bollocks from Hertz "I'm sorry sir but the car you've reserved was returned late & won't be full prepared for re-hire for an hour or so, but we've got an upgrade for only $10 a day" After some argy bargy which involved using my fictitious AA membership to achieve a 10% discount on the whole price, a deal was struck. $245 for 8 days unlimited mileage rental of a Nissan Altima. Including taxes, but no insurance which I arranged separately.

The upgrade car had a Hertz NeverLost GPS device fitted, which was OK but does not have any traffic reports or avoidance capability. My son soon got bored of that & we mainly used the Waze App on his phone. Which in some ways was actually not as good as the Google Maps directions as Waze wanted constant connectivity. It made a difference travelling through LA & suburbs, but not so essential traversing the Mojave Desert.

I've no idea how much data Waze eats up as he had an unlimited data package on his phone.

The sat nav I borrowed, being a Garmin Nuvi 660 with a USA Western States map on inserted SD card was fine, but again no traffic reports / avoidance, so only used once to get to the Hertz depot.

Thanks, can you say why you didn't just use Google maps, they are by far the best satnav i have ever used and always up to date.
 
I bought the N America maps SD card for my Garmin and took it with me.
Sold it on eBay when I got home, for £15 less than I paid for it.
 


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