Rent car with GPS or buy portable GPS?

What is your phone carrier? We have driven rentals with GPS and often didn't bother using it, instead using my iPhone to navigate. I have TMobile so data use is free.

We have ATT.

Click on "offline maps" in your google maps. When you have wifi at your hotel, download a map you need for the next day.

When you search the next day - without wifi OR data - you will receive the same directions that you normally would if you had data turned on.

In the past I've downloaded maps to my phone from Here We Go at home for the regions I'd be traveling in. And was then able to use them for navigation off-line. They worked out great, no issues with accuracy or anything like that, and they were used for driving navigation. Before renting a separate GPS unit, I'd look at this option to see if Here We Go or a similar mapping service would work offline for you.

Most people use the GPS function on their phones. Portable GPS system are going the way of travel checks.

We've rented cars in Spain and France several times in recent years and did not request the GPS. Each time, the car was equipped with the installed GPS. Got lucky, perhaps? I was prepared to navigate by other means but took advantage of the GPS.

We bought our own and have used it many times since then as we did not have a cellphone that would work overseas at the time. Having a gps is a really good thing and kept us from getting really lost and thus saved us time and stress.

I was faced with that decision a few years back and opted to purchase a Garmin with Europe maps . The rental GPS was as much or more than buying one. I prefer to use Google Maps with data . I bring that Garmin with ma as back up because without navigation driving is too complicated. Google generally works much better and is easier to use than the Garmin but I still appreciate it when there is no signal.
I use T Mobile but had a problem in Puglia with signal last October. So glad I brough the backup.
You can buy a plan from ATT but it is a bit pricy.
Anyone had issues with T Mobile and Google in Spain? I am going to have a car for a week in May in the North .

We have two iphones we bring along on trips. I get a European SIM card for mine and use it as a gps and to make local calls for reservations etc. . We get an international plan for the other phone which we have used during medical emergencies and to text our family for free

As much as it would cost to rent a GPS for 2 weeks you could buy one. We use a combination of our Garmin and offline Google maps on my phone. The Garmin works well for getting into and out of the cities and towns, while the downloaded maps works well to get to those small, really out of the way places not in the Garmin. On a couple occasions the car we rented came with an onboard navigation system. With downloaded maps you don’t use data so it doesn’t matter who your carrier is. Just place the phone in airplane mode and your phone becomes a GPS. I just updated my Garmin’s European maps (no charge) and have saved all of our upcoming trip’s lodgings and many sights to it.

I’ve been using a Garmin for years and have always had good experiences with it, save one unfortunate event in Croatia (looking back it was funny, but at the moment, not so much). Now we use a combination of various apps, mostly for cities, but outside the cities, we use mostly the gps. When I bought my gps, a Garmin, 10 years ago, it came with free, unlimited map updates, worldwide. I don’t know if that feature is still available, but I hope it is. It saves a ton of money. One rental will cost you more than buying one.

Use your phone (google maps or waze).
If you have an unlocked phone buy a SIM card locally. Or, even for less money, if you have a tablet (ipad) with a SIM slot, buy a SIM card for your tablet. You can use it for google maps too.

Thanks for all the advice! I appreciate it all.

Google Maps. subscribe to ATT international day pass. it charges $10/day only on the days you use it. and its blazing fast. turn off roaming other days. the max it bills is for 10 days so you could use it the entire billing cycle if needed without an obscene fee.

If you're not booking the cheapest car, but are aiming for the "compact" category (which would be reasonable for a 2-week trip), according to my recent rental experiences in France (and I'm sure Spanish rental franchises buy the same cars as French ones) you are very likely to have a built-in GPS in the car. If you do not, the phone will be a backup. Also, directional signage and road conditions are almost universally excellent in Spain, so you might well find that GPS is only needed for final approach of a specific destination.

Pretty much every car I've rented over the last few years has had satnav built in, even the crappy little Renault Clio in Nice had it although I tend to use my phone as it's easier than fiddling around with a new system, usually having to work out how to change the language etc.

Beware of Hertz, they tend to remove the SD cards that contain the maps (on those systems that use SD cards) and will charge you the cost of a satnav rental to put it back in.

Beware of Hertz, they tend to remove the SD cards that contain the maps (on those systems that use SD cards) and will charge you the cost of a satnav rental to put it back in.

Thanks for the heads up on Hertz. I had noticed when looking at their rental cars in Spain that they have the additional daily charge for GPS. We have run into problems with Hertz recently adding charges we didn’t ask for on a one way rental in the US.

I couldn’t find anywhere on the Europcar website any mention of adding the GPS, so good to hear that most rental cars have the GPS already.

Do you know how to offload a map using google maps on your phone?

@carla - do a search on how to download offline Google maps on an iPhone. There’s even a YouTube video.

Offload generally means to remove, so I assume you meant download.

You are correct. Wrong terminology.

It's offline, not offload!

We rented a car at Heathrow for our four week Wales and England self-driving tour.
The rental agency didn't have the car that I booked and wanted a lot of money for a Garmin. That forced us to take a more expensive car with a nav system.

Had I researched this issue before the trip, I would have gone to a market that had GPS devices for a very reasonable price.

You can take a GPS or Garmin to Europe that is loaded with North American maps, the device isn't built to be able to download the European data (what I found in 2017).
Better to just buy one with the European maps included.

I’ve had my Garmin since 2016 and I bought an SD card, purchased the European maps, and downloaded them to it. You used to be able to buy an SD card directly from Garmin with the European maps preloaded. I assume one can still do that. Without the extra SD card, the Garmin doesn’t have sufficient memory for both North America and European maps.

A month ago I purchased an SD card containing Europe maps directly from Garmin.

GPS does not require data, no matter what Google tries to tell you. Download maps ahead of time. If you want the add on bits Google give you (gas stations etc) then yes, data is needed. Having said that, a local SIM card without huge data would be more than fine for mapping, attractions etc.

If you decide to rent a GPS video the rental company worker that shows you how to use it. I kept turning it to English and it kept talking in French to me. Luckly I also had a Garmin from home and 3 iphones piping in. However, Google was the best at not getting us lost. J

Look into adding the free app maps.me to your phone ... you download individual maps for countries (be sure to do this on wi-fi so it doesn't use your data, some map files can be quite large) ... you can then use the app offline so you don't need to be connected ... we've used this app for several trips to Europe and New Zealand, works well and very similar to google maps

get the free maps.me app. Download where you are going (like 'Barcelona') and open it when you're there.