GPS files
 

Travelling to Europe this month. Should I buy a maps for my Garmin V before I leave Australia or wait till I arrive into Switzerland?


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Why buy them at all, use OSM mapping, free and good

Oh yeah and welcome by the way

Wayne

GPS
 

I agree don't worry with Garmin ! I had one at start of my trip and not all country's avalible !
I have used my IPhone & IPad with the Google Maps App, maps.me app & Pocket Earth app! All you need is there ! Just download them so you can use off line if Internet not working

I would also use Open street if it works on your gps. The EUCN is good, but frankly I don't think it's worth the 100€.

OSM work for us in Europe to Turkey and the Balkans, all the Americas and Australia and of course they are the right price.

Disadvantages are that there is no lane guidance which can help on some of the complex interchanges, speed limits may be missing and sometimes it does funny things when planning a long route through several countries by plotting it as a series of straight lines rather than following the actual roads. Can be prevented by planning routes as a series of shorter runs.

Get the maps while you are in Australia on free wifi and also get all the POI files you are likely to need before you leave.

If you want Garmin Maps then it might be cheaper getting them in Europe. Both TomTom and Garmin are not inclined to sell us stuff for the same prices as they do overseas.

Get the OSM Garmin maps ... Free worldwide Garmin maps from OpenStreetMap

For your smart phone get the off line maps app/s (these also use OSM data) maps.me etc...

The Garmin maps you pay for are better - more POI and better lane guidance, but for the price you may fine they are worth the money. So I would get the free maps and see what you think before you leave .