Any suggestions for purchasing ( basically where ! ) reasonably priced ( not from Garmin !! ) and reliable Micro SD Map Cards for Portugal and Morocco ??
I am trying to avoid the costly rental of GPS from Car Rental Agency. Some RS posters have said that the rental units my also be unreliable.
I am having some difficulty locating some them for this trip.
Thanks !
I would be AMAZED if you could find a map for a garmin gps from a non-garmin source.
Depending on how long you need it, it may be cheaper to rent a gps from the car rental agency .
You just have to do the math , garmin map at $x , vs rental agency rate time the number of days.
I would be more concerned about a "knock off" map than the rental agency gps for reliability
I agree with Joe about sourcing Garmin maps. One option is Ebay where you might be able to pick up a previous version or a used one. After many years of taking my Garmin with me, I finally gave up and rely on Apple or Google maps on my iPhone. Google Maps, as well as some other apps available for iOS or Android phones, have off line map capabilities. If you're taking a phone, that's the inexpensive way to go and you'll drag one less item with you.
Well, I wouldn't buy one unless it was returnable if it failed to work. I have put my own SD cards into my Garmins, and with considerable effort, used the (paid) map subscriptions to update them. That said, a Garmin running from an SD card has noticeable lags in "painting" the screen image, which can affect driver navigation. Older Garmins can be completely unable to read the fastest newer SD cards. You never know until you match up the card and the Garmin and try it.
(That last statement is not a made-up fact. I contacted Garmin to complain, and was was politely informed that my Garmin was built before Type 10 cards were invented, and the machine would NEVER read one ... Next question: "When is a LIFETIME MAP Subscription NOT a LIFETIME MAP Subscription???? I needed the card because later maps were BIGGER than the internal memory of the Garmin. )
I bought maps for my Garmin GPS from an US seller on eBay twice, one for NZ and one for Spain and Portugal. ~$30 each, easy to install on the SD cards, worked perfectly in cities and through rural villages, without any noticeable lags. These eBay maps are meant for specific GPS models (and versions), so make sure that yours is in the ads' lists before ordering. I confirmed that they were properly installed prior to departure. In addition to avoiding the rental car charge, I know that I will be operating a GPS that I am familiar with. I can re-use the SD cards, or loan them to my friends.
I brought along this charger for charging multiple devices during long drives.
Get ready to be amazed, maybe. Recently looking for an Italy map for my Garmin GPS I came across garmin.openstreetmap.nl. The site is rather counterintuitive to use, but you can select blocks of the country to include the area you expect to travel in. Then you send in a request and a few days later the map is ready to download and install on your GPS. Now keep in mind that I haven't used the map live in Italy but I have mapped a few routes compared them to Google maps and "driven" the routes using the simulator. Seems accurate. I plan to do some more testing. There are not as many POIs as the Garmin maps, but it's free. I bought a Garmin map of Spain a couple of years back and had a lot of fun getting lost with it, sending me the wrong way up one way streets, and missing large sections of major autovias. So I can't imagine this could be worse.
Just returned from Italy. Drove around Tuscany for six days and 600+ Kms. No issues with the open street maps, worked perfectly. And the map did one thing that no other GPS map will do; it helps to avoid ZTLs. If you plan a route to a destination that is inside a ZTL a warning comes up that says cars may not be allowed at the destination, do you want to look for parking nearby with yes or no buttons. The first time I saw this it didn't know what it was and pressed no, but as I got closer to the destination it kept popping up. Then I saw the ZTL warning signs and realized it was sending me into the ZTL unless I took evasive action, and I did. I can't say this will be 100% accurate so keep your eyes open. Any other GPS will send you right into a ZTL and a hefty fine with no warning.
I bought microSD card Europe maps for my old Garmin a few times off eBay with success. However, after I got a decent smart phone with Google Maps, I sold my Garmin - I think Google Maps is superior in most ways (especially because maps are updated constantly), and you don't even need a mobile data connection in Europe use your phone as a GPS. Just download the maps into Google Maps "offline" ahead of time. A mobile data connection with a SIM card is helpful though and very affordable these days.
Here are some easy directions for downloading Open Street Maps files into your Garmin GPS: How to Download Free Maps to Your Garmin Edge
Follow the directions there with these exceptions:
My older Garmin accepts a full-size SD card up to 2 GB capacity but for example this permited me to load all maps for Ireland and Northern Ireland.
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