GPS in Europe

Can you tell us a little about your Aussie GPS? Is a major make? Garmin or Tom Tom or something else?

Most people buy the maps - sometimes a download, sometimes on a chip - for Europe and are good to go. If you use your current one you will know its little tricks and it will be much easier than trying to familiarise yourself with a different one. Much cheaper, too.

In fact, for 23 days you could buy a brand new spankers one for less I'll wager.

Hey thanks, it's a Garmin GPS - about 4 years old??

Edwina

There's a model number and serial number on the back or on the bottom. Have a squint around the Garmin website or fire up your Garmin dashboard on your computer and you should be able to see what Europe maps are available and if you have to download to the unit or if you download to an SD card.

Technology has come on quite a bit in the last 18 months - my one year old Garmin runs circles around the previous one which was about 2 years older (I've had 6 Garmins and one original which ran on a modified Psion). If you will use it a fair bit you might consider a new one. They have come down a lot in price - in the UK, dunno about Oz.

Thanks Nigel, fabulous advice!

You should first see if you can load european maps into your GPS and at what cost. We bought the cheapest one we could find with european maps and took it with us. The car rental company would charge us $14 per day for 2 weeks. It seems to me that with as many days as you will be travelling that it would be cost effective to buy one and take it with you. We enter all our destinations before we left so we did not have to struggle while in Europe. The bonus is that once the trip is over I still have my GPS to use at home.

To prepare for our recent trip (Germany, Switzerland, Austria) I purchased a set of European Maps for my 1 year old Garmin Nuvi. I chose to receive the new maps through the mail installed to a micro-SD card that I inserted into my unit. You can also download them and install them yourself if your model has enough memory - but online discussions of using that delivery mechanism indicated that it is a bit of a challenge. The system and the new maps worked well everywhere we went and a big advantage over renting one or buying a new one was that I was already familiar with how to use it. A disadvantage was that the cost for the maps was almost as much as buying a new GPS ($90 US).

I purchased the maps directly from the Garmin website so perhaps they are cheaper through another venue.

I've been buying a new GPS about every two years, because the features get better and the prices don't really go up. I give the old ones to my kids.

Rental agencies typically add $10 a day for a GPS, which is about twice what a decent GPS will cost you. I'm a big believer in buying one before your trip, giving yourself time to become familiar with it before you need it there, then packing it with you - but I'd want one I could also use when I came home for the next four years.

I live in the U.S. so I always buy a GPS with both North America and Europe maps installed. I would expect that a similar product is available with Australia/Europe maps.

Excellent advice, thank you everyone!