First Attempt to use OSM on Garmin Zumo 590
 

I just loaded the generic OSM of Morocco onto my Zumo 590 and into Basecamp. I am impressed with the detail available.

However, next to the Latin spelling of some places I find lots of gibberish in the shape of question marks e.g. "Ifrane ????? ?Fr?N" - would that be due to the Arabic spelling and my fontset which cannot display it properly?

Does anyone know how to fix this?
What happens if you try to use Garmin's voice guidance?

OSM means Open Street Map and it is open to anyone to add/change roads, and other map features.

Since I'm planning a trip to Morocco, I've seen exactly the things you are talking about: Ifrane ???? etc. Someone went in and did some editing on the map and forgot to correct their notes.

The beauty of OSM is people can add details about routes that would never make it into any printed atlas. The bane is: whatever errors they make when changing the map are there for good, or until someone else fixes them.

.............shu

For what it's worth, I spent a month riding in Morocco during February 2019, and I purchased Garmin's CityNavigator Morocco map to use in my Zumo 590.

The map was not cheap - $100 USD - but it was good, it covered everywhere I rode (2,000+ miles, mostly rural, all the way down to Mauritania).

I'm planning to spend March of this year riding in Tunisia. This time, rather than spending another $120 USD to buy Garmin's City Navigator Middle East and Northern Africa map (the only way to get Tunisia mapping), I purchased a TomTom Rider 550, which comes with free, unlimited updates of cartography for the entire world.

I have not had a chance to use the TomTom on the bike yet, but I have used it in my car in Canada a few times, and it seems to be pretty good for navigation. The only problem with the Rider 550 is that TomTom has is having problems with their app that links this device to newer iPhones (running iOS 13.x), which means you won't get any telephone connectivity or traffic data from the device - it's strictly a navigator.

I'm not opposed in principle to OSM, I think it's a noble idea, but it would only take a few map errors in a crowd-sourced map to screw up navigation on a long distance trip in an unfamiliar country, which is why I prefer to rely on commercial mapping, such as the TeleAtlas, Garmin, HERE, etc. cartography that is provided by the navigation device suppliers.

Michael

We used both OSM and Garmin maps, two different GPS units on a trip to Morocco a few years ago. Susan has her own GPS on the back, so she can plan while we ride and offer guidance in tricky cities - definitely a help. She used OSM, I used Garmin.

We found both pretty good, neither perfect, one better than the other occasionally, but overall we decided no question the Garmin won.
I would love it if OSM won - and if you're on a real budget, it's good enough.

That's been my experience with OSM and Garmin maps as well in Central Asia and South America. I usually try to have both.

..................shu

Garmin's Morocco maps are OSM based but made to look fancy. A large amount of the nav app's also use OSM for their basemapping

I've been using OSM maps in the region for a number of years now and they remain the best map set for the region in my experience. The places name issue is a bit irritating but not a show stopper. The OSM North Africa Topo maps don't seem to have the same issue with places names.

Available here FOC
Africa North OSM Topo Routable | GMapTool

Turn by Turn routing with OSM works perfectly with Garmins voice guidance. There are a few places with junctions on OSM haven't been added correctly so the auto routing sends you on long detours (eg Foum Zguid to Zagora where it sends you via Ouarazazate), but you can normally spot these errors on the route when zoomed out.

Are there good buyable Garmin maps for Central Asia?

And they don't just cover main roads?

Specially for this area, I found the OSM extremely good and accurate.

Ahhh, good catch. I was mostly thinking about South America- Ecuador and Peru.

I, too, used the OSM exclusively in Central Asia. I think I had both Garmin and OSM in Turkey but not farther east.

.........shu

More than 10 years ago I gave up on Garmin made maps and now exclusively used OSM, covering 10s of thousands of miles in areas including Europe, South America, Central Asia and Siberia. I found OSM to be excellent, even for remote places. And legitimately free of charge.

In the last year or so, I've also used Google Maps on my phone too, particularly in the UK and Europe. It has excellent up to the minute traffic updates and rerouting suggestions.

Outside major highways in North America and Western Europe, the boat set sail on Garmin maps a long time ago, imho.

I love my Garmin hardware. Still using a 60csx

I can acknowledge what Chris is saying. Business with map development is dead and does not bring money to Garmin. Many years ago (10+ ?) Garmin did a good map development. Now the geospatial data is bought from low-quality-sources and will be compiled to Garmin maps without verification. During my last trip in Oman I used the CN MENA and found a lot of errors. Therefore, OSM will be one of the first choices, even the parameterization is often bad.

And me too is using the 60CSx (Sirf3) which was in my opinion the best Garmin receiver ever. All new models (I tested the 66-series) are bullshit in my eyes.

Best regards,
Paul

I found half a dozen of these on the OSM Morocco maps so it seems it's quite a problem. The first one was going from Tanger Port to Asilah where like an idiot I followed a diversion far to the east. I then encountered another when coming into Marrakech from the N8, and then another coming into Marrakech from Ouarzazate, both of these I ignored. And then others later from Agadir heading east, etc.

Fortunately on the KTM 790 I have an option to display navigation on the instrument panel from the KTM My Ride app running on a smartphone, so I started to use this instead.

I have also relied on OSM maps (on Garmin devices) exclusively for many years (8?) rather than Garmin. I've used them in Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Western Europe, and the US. In Mongolia, the OSM maps blew me away, directing me over what were little more than dirt tracks with great accuracy.

With OSM (and any other digital maps, including Garmin), you can't follow them blindly and have to occasionally make judgement calls about how to proceed. Generally when I see a physical sign pointing towards a city, I will follow that rather than rely on instructions from my Garmin device. A common occurrence is having the map direct you onto a highway off ramp, and then right back onto the highway, because it is 50 meters (or whatever) shorter than staying on the highway... (I generally have my device on "shortest route" rather then "fastest route").