GPS Rental

Kelly,

Don't take this trip without a GPS. It can offer you so many options, and you can't get lost. Buy your own, and learn how to use it here.

We have used our TOMTOM Go 920 in both Portugal and Germany, and for a cross country US trip. (It has all maps built in, and you can get free software updates.)

We are taking it to France for our trip this May. Once you use one, you'll ask yourself why you waited so long to buy one.

It is the absolute best travel investment and marriage survival tool that I could reccomend!

I just checked, and the TOMTOM Go 920 is now only $239 at many of the best web shopping sites.

Hi, Kelly. Right now, Autoeruope has a bunch of "free GPS with 5 day or longer rental" specials. Go to their website, and click on the specials or deals tab.

We're kind of at the same point ourselves - We already own a GPS (that' doesn't take Europe maps), and don't need two! A lot of on here have suggested Ebaying it when you get back. Apparently, you can get back almost what you paid for it.

If you find any other deals, let us know! ;) Chris

Just simply request a model with a GPS from your rental company. A quick survey of Sixt.com seems to indicate that the rental price is determined by the model of the car, and the presence or lack of a GPS has no bearing on the cost. For example, their cheapest car, the VW Polo comes standard with a GPS, while a VW Touran at nearly three times the cost does not have one.

Kelly,

Garmin 270 with full N. America and Europe maps for $142 out of pocket from Amazon. I use it and I am happy with it (as long as you don't do fancy stuff like loading POIs or routes from the web). Even when you don't drive, you can use it in Pedestrian mode and to memorize where you leave your car, where the hotel is, etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-270-3-5-Inch-Portable-Navigator/dp/B000OH26OM

For many years we have driven through France. We go almost every year and take our own GPS. We have rented a car with a GPS and there are several things you should know. It will be in French.If you can, have the rental place put it into English. It is not all that easy on some cars to do that. Secondly, my husband always puts a marker on the rental car place if you are returning it to the same spot. We get our car at Orly airport and it is easier to return the car there if you take some time to put a marker down . We have a Garmin 350 , and we bought the chip for France. We would not go anywhere without it.

I used to think we HAD to have GPS in Europe, and yes, it is handy to have it. It's nice when we were driving late at night and needed a hotel (you can get directions to hotels, restaurants, etc), or when we just wanted to go out on a scenic drive on backroads (when we wanted to get home we'd just punch in our home destination).

But, you can only get them at some rental car locations, usually airports, and one time we were renting in a small Bordeaux town. And it turned out navigating via road signs is so incredibly easy in Europe. We rarely even looked at our maps.

So, if you don't want to buy it, and can't get one via the rental car company, don't sweat it. You won't have any problems.

They are actually a target for theives so if you do get one, don't leave it in sight in your car. I've also never had issues choosing english as an option, by the way.

One big reason for buying your GPS before leaving home is to learn how to use it before you are on the road. You can enter addresses and sites on your unit before you leave home to save time and effort later.

A rental will probably charge $100 for a week GPS rental which is nearly half the cost of buying a unit you can keep.

NOTE! If you decide to get a rental with GPS, make sure it is BUILT-IN. The portable ones they provide are usually chepie ones. worse, look at your rental agreement. If you lose it (or have it stolen and/or broken), you get to pay them a price far in excess of its value. My agreement called for 450€ fee. So you spend your time worrying about where it is and if your car will be broken into and it is stolen.

Buy a GPS with Europe maps here or get a car with GPS permanently attached.

The same goes with renting cell phones for a trip. Check your agreement. I'll bet you buy them a cruise with the price you owe them if you lose it.

I second/third/fourth the recommendation to purchase your own GPS and familiarlize yourself with it before you go. Our own one time renting in Europe involved a vehicle that had a built in GPS. Now I'm very familiar with GPS, on my third one here, but the built in GPS was a different animal. It did give directions in English, but was set on the shortest route rather than the fastest. We didn't know this until our trip was almost over and were routed through tiny villages with extremely narrow streets, which while scenic, wasn't what we really wanted to do. In short, you want to be there with a GPS that you are familiar with. There is enough to familiarize yourself with, without having to learn a new and strange GPS system.

I have the Garmin Nuvi 270 mentioned above. It works great!

I would recommend that over getting one from the rental car company. Some of them are great and some are HORRID!

What reccommendations would I make about having a GPS?

Don't use one!

IMPO, a part of the joy of traveling in Europe is
1: researching your trip....you will learn about where you are visiting because you had to make the effort to research.

2: use maps! Study the areas you are visiting! Having this knowledge in your brain adds to the enjoyment of your trip! I can think of any city we visited and picture it's layout, where the sites are, etc. This greatly adds to the permanent memories of your trips as well. And you can actually speak with confidence and intelligence about where you have been.

3: Allow yourself to get lost! It's part of the fun! Is your trip an adventure, or is it a calculated plan set in stone? Some of the best discoveries and experiences happen by chance! And some of your best and most vivid memories will be when things don't go quite right or as expected.

So...ditch the GPS...and leave something up to chance! Happy travels!

We bought our Garmin for the trip and then it turned out our rental van DID have it built in. However, we found the rental GPS really confusing to use, so I am glad we had our own. That said, ours always took about 15 mins to get a signal once turned on, was rarely usable in pedestrian mode, and lost the signal more than once at critical times. Also, even though I had updated the map before we left, there was a portion of freeway under construction, and it freaked out when we tried side streets- actually tried to take us up a pedestrian trail.
That said, it did come in handy most of the time. I highly recommend taking good road maps, too. I did and actually left them at home on accident, but luckily our rental had one.

Lorraine

I have a GPS, I also use maps. They aren't mutually exclusive.

I am sorry but for most of us "getting" lost is not the charm you seem to think it is. (I once got "lost" in the projects in Chicago. I lived but there were moments I was concered so your "cheerful" view could wind up bbeing rather dangerous!)

I don't really see a lot of appeal in being lost, but I will admit that if you do get lost it's a LOT less frustrating to have the GPS tell you how to get 'found' then continue to flounder around LOL!

(I still get lost, I find it less stressful now that I know the computer will rescue from my idiot errors LOL!)

I have to disagree with Lorraine.

I had driven numerous times in Northern Europe and never felt I needed a GPS. Signage was functional and logical. I could find the towns I wanted and parking without too much trouble.

That all changed on a trip to Italy. While it was fun stopping and asking for directions, the time you lose taking the wrong turn adds up.

Streets in Italy have names but they rarely have a sign. So knowing you want to turn right on Main doesn't really help. At one stop for directions I was told to turn left across Ponte Campione which was fine until I got to the river and saw five bridges, not one of which had a name on it.

Freeways have number designations but you never see the sign "A30 West". You don't even see the sign that says Florence next right. Instead you see a sign that names three towns you never heard of with an arrow pointing right. With a map, you're scrambling to decide if that's the turn you need. On the autostrada, every wrong turn costs a lot of time. Exits are spread out because they each have manned toll booths, so taking the next exit and turning around is at least a ten or fifteen minute proposition and often twice that.

Since vacations are about enjoying the limited time you have, something that saves time (and hassle) is well worth the cost.