GPS for France and Spain Driving

Was going to recommend the Garmin Nuvi but John beat me to it. It's worked great for us in both countries.

I agree with John. I've used my 9 year old Garmin all over Europe with great success. If you purchase one, look for an option that has North American and Europe maps installed. (Also make sure they're lifetime maps so you can update them.)

18 months ago I ran it concurrently with google map app on my iPhone on. Two week trip through Spain and Portugal. The iPhone did a great job and directions from both units were almost identical. I'm visiting Corsica, Sardinia, and Italy later this year and most likely will only take the iPhone. If you have a smart phone, you might want to consider that option. The only time I have used paper maps have been on a trip through Turkey before it was GPS mapped and on a prior trip to Spain when I dropped the unit and broke the touch screen. Don't "over map" yourself. Practice with your choice at home before going to Europe.

If you already own a GPS, look into buying European maps for it. This is easiest, as you already know how to operate your current model.

If you don't already own a GPS, you can buy one with European and US maps. A friend got a TomTom from Amazon, and it wasn't much more expensive than a US-only model.

Once you get your GPS, definitely enter the locations of your hotels, any sights you will be driving to, etc. This lets you preview the route before leaving home, and also saves lots of time while there.

We too have used a Garmin GPS pre-loaded with European maps with great success.
That said, as technology marches on there might be a better (and cheaper) way to do this. Check with your service provider to see how much it would cost to add European roaming to your smart phone. For short stays (a month or less) it might well be cheaper to get the data package for Europe, use the maps feature on your phone, and avoid having to take another electronic gizmo across the pond.

We rented a car that had GPS in it and it was a good thing for us. I had printed out driving directions from viamichelin, and when I compared them to the GPS, the printouts were very inferior. For example, when leaving one town from our hotel, the printout said "leave town" but there were multiples highways and ways to go. Fortunately, the car GPS told us exactly how to leave town.

Why the need to use technology when you can use a map? Just as other posters say, the GPS systems are not perfect. My husband says that I am his GPS. I know how to read a map and I am a little cheaper. :)

We have purchased the laminated Borch maps at Barnes and Noble. We have severall for various countries. They are quite accurate. The only defect that I would attribute to them is the lack of detail for the towns and cities. Otherwise...drive on!

I have been using a Garmin NUVI since 2010 with both US and European databases in France,Italy,Germany,Austria,Spain and Switzerland with good results,some times in Italy it would send us the wrong way.A person who stayed at the same B&B as us also experienced the same problems with a Tom Tom in Italy.I think that the GPS pays for itself in cities.
Mike

Michael, a GPS will do a lot to take the stress out of navigating, especially in cities. If both of you are unfamiliar with the language, it's worse than useless to have a passenger try to read a map and call out street names in butchered French, Italian, etc. However, maps work better for inter-city navigation. The GPS will frequently take you off the best route and down some back roads -- interesting if you have the time, but not the most efficient use of your limited days. With that on mind, just about any of the major brands will work fine. They're listed on Amazon. Buy one before your trip and get familiar with it before you leave. I use my old Garmin Nuvi with an updated database on an SD card for the country I'm visiting.

By the way, they work pretty well for navigating on foot in cities. I even used one once to bookmark the location of my parked car in in the tangle of streets near the Milan Cathedral. I'd still be looking for it otherwise.

If you have an Android or IOS (Apple) phone, there are a couple of apps that, for very little cost, will do what a standalone GPS will do. I use "GPS Navigation & Maps - USA", which despite the name allows you to purchase (less than $15) all the maps on earth and use them offline, without incurring data charges. I have found it to be the equal of Garmin and Magellan standalones, and a world better than paper maps.

last year I bought a TOM TOM and used it for approx 8 weeks around Europe and the UK , we also used it at times in tandem with the gps that was in our brand new leased citroen, just to see which one worked best. one nice feature of the TOM TOM was using map codes. it is a system they developed that uses a simple code for every address so you simply put in the map code and it directs you right to the address. i simply documented the map codes for each place before our trip and it saved trying to input address details while there. fantastic system.
the TOM TOM was much better than the installed system in the citroen.

If you have a smart phone, you can probably use the Google Maps app. Just download the map at the hotel while connected to WiFi in advance of your car trip (save map for offline use), and I think you should be able to use the GPS data-free. You probably would want to double check with your phone carrier tho.

I bought this Garmin last fall for our trip. It got us everywhere we needed from Nice to Provence to the Camargue, over to La Rochelle then Paris, our hotel and nearest parking garage in Paris. We missed a few turns here and there but were able to easily correct ourselves most of the time.
http://www.thegpsstore.com/Garmin-Nuvi-2577LT-with-Maps-of-North-America-and-Europe-P3531.aspx

The rental car also had a GPS built in, pretty sure it was a TomTom- I prefer the Garmin, probably because I'm used to it. We had a harder time trying to program the built in one. There were a few times we programmed both to see the difference in directions, sometimes the same, some times slightly different. Once the TomTom tried to take us to a different Biot, 5 hours away- the Garmin found the one we wanted 20 mins away.
The previous year we used my daughters iPhone, she lives in France so has a French phone carrier with unlimited data. The iPhone was my favorite. Easy to use and spot on. I figure though, the GPS doesn't need cell service as does the iPhone. So if in an area with spotty service, the phone may not do any good. We also had some Michelin maps and guide books for back up and reference.