I am renting an auto europe gps for a trip through sicily. It is cheap to rent but the model they send you is pretty old. A Garmin 145, which can be purchased used for about $25. They value it at $300 and the microchip for Europe at $300.
When I ordered it I thought for that value they would send a new model with voice activation. This has none.
I leave in a few days or I would have just returned this and bought a newer one for a little over $100.
Do not recommend.
I use my phone as GPS in Europe. I use maps.me and download the maps before I leave or when I have wifi during my travels. It works offline and I've been happy with it. The last time I went to Europe, I did not use my phone for data and I was very happy with the directions.
Thanks for the info. Like you said, I was renting a car and trying to decide what to do about a GPS. This was about 7 years ago. I bought a Garmin from Amazon with US and Europe maps for about $100. I have used it on subsequent trips. However, now, most of their cars come with a GPS installed in the car. Yup, now you will have two. I don't pay for their GPS, however, I use it. They don't know. I just have to change it to English. I drive with both GPS's talking to me and often time one of them won't work properly. I ALWAYS take maps with me and look at the route ahead of time. Have a great trip!
I am old school, or maybe just old, but I have always used a stand a lone gps. They are cheap to buy and I have been thinking of value.
I always have a paper map for planning and backup.
Have yet to rent a car with a gps.
Have a great trip.
We left our Garmin with a chip for European maps home this past trip to Sicily.Takes up too much room and it is old, dated. I bought a SIM card and had an excellent experience driving many back roads in Sicily using Google Maps on my iPhone. Remember to bring a car charger along though.
We've had 3 car rentals in France (2012/15/18) and all three cars had integrated GPS. Maybe we were just really lucky?
