I will be driving in Europe for the first time in a couple of weeks using a rental car. I am planning on purchasing a GPS before departure rather than renting one over there, since there wouldn't be that much of a cost difference considering the amount of time I will be renting the cars. I will be driving in England and Iceland. Any recommendations as to which device I should buy? It looks like they generally just come with North American maps on them -- how do I go about getting European maps loaded onto the device? Any recommendations would be very helpful as I have never driven with a GPS even in the U.S. I am planning on printing out actual paper driving directions too, just to cover my bases in case the device malfunctions or something, but I want to avoid getting lost if at all possible. :)
Posted by
Dallas
1022 posts
My Garmin unit now gathers dust while I use TomTom UK app on the iPad and iphone. It doesn't need data. If you will have data service, Google Maps app is good. GPS apps for Iceland are available.
Posted by
Hermosa Beach, CA, USA
277 posts
In 2011, we borrowed my daughter's old Garmin and loaded Europe maps on it. I had never used it and the first time we drove (from Paris to Versailles), we were enjoying the lovely little roads until we noticed that it was set on "Bicycling." Lesson one - practice at home with it before you go.
The battery was useless, though, and so it had to be plugged into the cigarette lighter the whole time.
Last year we rented a car to use around England. Avis asked if we wanted navigation with it. We declined because we had the old Garmin. The car came with it anyway and so we used it for free. The car's navigation system was much better than the old Garmin, but the Garmin was workable.
Posted by
Santa Rosa, CA, USA
1446 posts
We have a Tom Tom that we love. It was purchased with European maps on it.
Posted by
Olympia, WA, USA
6713 posts
I bought a Magellan GPS several years ago and used it a good deal here. Last year I downloaded a Europe map from the Magellan website (not to be confused with the travel clothing company!) and it worked fine on our trip to France. Warning: the map took about 4 hours to download. Really I think any of the three big GPS brands -- Garmin, TomTom, Magellan -- would work well and you can buy a Europe map if it doesn't already have one.
Posted by
Virginia
618 posts
Shop around the internet for a GPS with European maps. We bought one for about $130 because it was being discontinued for bigger screen models. The first time you load the maps it will take forever to load them. After you have it you can program your European destinations ahead of time. One great feature for us was that the GPS displayed speed limits which helped us as we were driving through small towns.
Posted by
Myrtle Beach, USA
12313 posts
Of the three big ones, I prefer TomTom. None of them are perfect and all bear watching to make sure they are tracking correctly. I've learned to be very precise in entering and accepting my destination - similar looking street or city names are not the same places.
Posted by
Portland
3635 posts
1st of all, I'll underline what a previous poster said. Practice with it before you go. The other advice that bears repeating is that none of the navigation units is perfect. Your idea of printing out driving directions is a good one, or have a good map for backup, or both. If the gps starts to lead you somewhere that looks really iffy; e.g., a very narrow and/or unpaved road, check carefully on your map. A strategy that we developed was to map a route using super highways where possible. When we get close to our destination, we rely on the gps.