Re: Getting to Walks
- From: Chris Lawrence <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:33:28 +0000
Roger wrote:
And now the question - are there any in-car unitsother than the highly
unsatisfactory Garmins that take grid references or some other easy way
of specifying a destination in the middle of nowhere? I am absolutely
fed up with having to second guess my current nuvi every time it directs
me down a single track road.
Hi Roger, it's funny that you should mention this today. Yesterday a
few of us drove to the Grindleford Gallop in the Peaks, and use a Garmin
in-car GPS to get there (actually using the postcode of the nearby
Maynard Arms hotel). The GPS was horrendous. Its spoken directions
were not clear and it frequently contradicted the visual map. It also
infuriatingly would take us one way then say "Recalculating..." and try
and take us another way, seemingly not really knowing which road we were on.
There's a certain knack with these in-car GPSs - you have to learn what
it means when it says certain things in certain contexts. For example
the Tom Toms will say things like "Ahead - keep right" which actually
means "Watch you don't filter into the next exit".
A couple of years ago I was using a Garmin StreetPilot i3, which is a
neat tiny little in-car GPS. It's not bad for normal roads but is not
touch screen. Most destinations could be fine-tuned specified using
intersections. However for car parks in the middle of nowhere it was
not good at all. So I boxed it back up and put it to one side to sell
(and still have it anyone is interested).
For this specific reason I bought a Tom Tom One V3, which was the new
(at the time) slim design and self-contained memory, with the small
press-on mount. There are two things I specifically like about the Tom
Toms:
1) Directions are mostly clear and they flow well at the right time.
2) You can browse and pan the map, zoom in and out, point to a place and
target the place that way. This is a huge plus.
So what I do is either find where I am going on the OS map and look for
nearby roads, lanes, etc. Or else I search for a postcode or place on
Google maps and pan around until I can see exactly where I need to be.
The satellite view on Google maps is really handy for identifying car
parks and otherwise unmarked areas.
Then I browse the Tom Tom map and pan along the roads to get the same
place, alternatively panning and zooming until I can see the exact point
I need to get to. If I then touch that point it is highlighted, and I
can then select "Add as Favourite" and add that specific point.
Later on I navigate to it, safe in the knowledge that I am going the
exact point that I touched, not some road which is nearby. It's great
for car parks in the middle of nowhere. Before navigating for real I
always try it at home to make sure that it can find a route, and then I
always check that the route actually makes sense.
Finally I always make a note of the phone numbers of nearby hotels or
anything like that, and carry an atlas in the car, so if it goes wrong I
have a plan B. It's never gone wrong yet though.
Garmin make great walking GPS devices but I'm not a great fan of their
in-car devices.
Chris
.
- References:
- Getting to Walks
- From: Roger
- Getting to Walks
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