I've just returned from an 11 day trip to Northern Spain with two old friends Rosslare to Bilbao route. Having taken the free trial of gold MRA Routeplanner earlier in the year I thought it useful enough to stump up the Funds for lifetime membership even though I'm a fan of and user of Basecamp. We had accommodation for the first two nights of our stay in Potes and the Last night in Bilbao near the Ferry Terminal. The rest of the trip was devised on the fly according to whim, weather and how good the accomodation was.
One of the biggest issues of using basecamp on a trip for me was the requirement to cart a Windows device around with me if I wanted to change routes. I never did this (laptops are heavy and delicate) and instead I relied on creating multiple alternative routes and loading them on the device and/or modifying/creating routes on the device; which is tedious at best.
For this trip I had an Ipad, my Android phone and Asturias Cantabria - Michelin Regional Map 572. As it turns out we had two nights in Potes, Three in Cangas Del Narcea, another night back in Potes before returning to Bilbao. After first arrival in Potes we sat round a table with the map and created routes on MRA over a few beers for the next day......a pattern was set
. Initially I used the Ipad which was great as you can see much more of the map. However, having the paper map a phone was sufficent to create routes on, as a map give an overview of the wider area and locations could be searched in MRA and linked together.
Conclusion in the future if I have a paper map I'll just use my phone. If for some reason I don't I'll take an Ipad.
I downloaded the routes created to my phone and transferred them to my Zumo XT via Garmin Drive then transferred them to another Zumo XT and Nav6 via bluetooth. I had no issues whatsoever with the routing on my Zumo XT (having taken time to learn how to avoid its foibles) On the last day returning to Bilbao (having reversed the first day route using MRA...it was even better in reverse) my friends XT did the RUT thing (I think it hadn't been switched on/aquired satellites) and was fixed during a coffee break using the active route method and restarting. The Nav 6 froze a few times??
All in all I really enjoyed having MRA for the trip. Flexible and easy to use even on a phone and operating system independant so can be used with a chromebook or Linux PC.......whats not to like?
One of the biggest issues of using basecamp on a trip for me was the requirement to cart a Windows device around with me if I wanted to change routes. I never did this (laptops are heavy and delicate) and instead I relied on creating multiple alternative routes and loading them on the device and/or modifying/creating routes on the device; which is tedious at best.
For this trip I had an Ipad, my Android phone and Asturias Cantabria - Michelin Regional Map 572. As it turns out we had two nights in Potes, Three in Cangas Del Narcea, another night back in Potes before returning to Bilbao. After first arrival in Potes we sat round a table with the map and created routes on MRA over a few beers for the next day......a pattern was set
. Initially I used the Ipad which was great as you can see much more of the map. However, having the paper map a phone was sufficent to create routes on, as a map give an overview of the wider area and locations could be searched in MRA and linked together.Conclusion in the future if I have a paper map I'll just use my phone. If for some reason I don't I'll take an Ipad.
I downloaded the routes created to my phone and transferred them to my Zumo XT via Garmin Drive then transferred them to another Zumo XT and Nav6 via bluetooth. I had no issues whatsoever with the routing on my Zumo XT (having taken time to learn how to avoid its foibles) On the last day returning to Bilbao (having reversed the first day route using MRA...it was even better in reverse) my friends XT did the RUT thing (I think it hadn't been switched on/aquired satellites) and was fixed during a coffee break using the active route method and restarting. The Nav 6 froze a few times??
All in all I really enjoyed having MRA for the trip. Flexible and easy to use even on a phone and operating system independant so can be used with a chromebook or Linux PC.......whats not to like?
