GPS in European cars - power source

US GPS units can be plugged in to a 12V power source (lighter) in European cars.

Take your home one and plug it in - away you go! We used ours this year in Great Britain and 2010 in Spain. No additional rental charges and they can be quite high. My friend had a GPS prearranged for his rental car in England, when he arrived for pick up he was told that they were all out! I also preprogram some addresses into ours prior to the trip.

Thanks Bob! Just what I needed to know! Have a great day.

Thanks Bob! Just what I needed to know! Have a great day.

"I'd like to just bring ours from home." Perhaps it goes without saying, but your GPS from home must have a Europe map in it. Standard GPS units sold in the US have maps for Canada, Hawaii and (I guess) Alaska, but not Europe.

Thanks Kent - yep, just checked and it'll be $100 to get Europe maps added to our gps.

We bought the entry level TomTom in Europe for Western Europe and use it every year. We would have had to off-load the N.American map from our N.American TomTom in order to load the European one, but we are too null to handle such a task. The European TomTom cost about $100.

Just a note to add. Watch the memory on your GPS. Like any other device with memory, they can get "wierd" when the memory approaches capacity (I had a camera problem that turned out to be my SD card nearing capacity). When you add Europe maps, you may be pushing the GPS memory limit. Some GPS units have the ability to plug in additional memory, others just give you plenty of room when you buy it. Hopefully it won't be a problem in your case. It may be a good idea to add the maps a little before your trip to make sure you don't have any negative side effects. I also like the idea of presetting addresses into the unit. If you know where you are staying or major sites you plan to drive to, put them in now and save time finding addresses during your vacaiton.