Smart phone in lieu of dedicated GPS unit?

[NW-Bound]

Have you tried sending more than one set of directions to your phone?

I am wondering if it's limited to just one, so effectively, you have to send the directions just before you leave. So it might be something you do at a hotel, from a laptop, to have the same directions show up on your phone.

But what I do is create custom maps and put all the destinations and waypoints I would be interested in for that trip. Then you can open those custom maps directly in the Google Maps app. on the phone and just select the destination you want to go to and it will calculate the route right there. You do need data connectivity when it's calculating the route and also to load those custom maps though.

I sent to the phone the routing from town A to town B, then B to C, etc... That seems to work.

But as I double checked, I found that I had not done that for the entire long trip with Google Map, and only with MAP.ME. And then, the Google Map app only downloaded a narrow strip along the intended road, and I need to go in to manually select larger areas where I intended to explore.

So, I kept adding and adding, until Google Map app said "Too many offline areas" and refused to add anymore. I counted 24 areas, taking up 4.7GB. It is not enough for the entire trip, but only about the 1st half.

Oh well, I will start to erase the already-traversed map areas, and to add more as the trip progresses. I just wanted to fill up the phone using my fast home WiFi, but Google did not want to cooperate.

 

[NW-Bound]

As mentioned, I tried MAPS.ME also, and it has some neat features. For example, if you tell it you want to go from a northern place like Hamburg, Germany, down to Malaga, Spain, it will map out the route and autodownload all the map sections that are needed.

Google Map does the same thing, but its maps take up a lot more storage than MAPS.ME's maps. The latter do not have as good details, however. I was picky, but could be satisfied with MAPS.ME too.

 

[cathy63]

I downloaded several free apps that have offline GPS support and topo/trail maps when we went to Joshua Tree NP in March. It doesn't matter who your cell provider is, there's no service out there, and I really liked being able to see where we were when we were out on a hiking trail that wasn't very well marked. I am definitely going to look for similar apps for other parks in the future.

I also had a few Google maps saved offline for crossing the Mojave desert after we left J-Tree. The navigation was completely seamless as we went in and out of cell coverage.

 

[folivier]

Here's what can happen to an app that only downloads the areas you are routed along. A couple months while traveling west we were routed off of I-10 north about 150 miles out of the way to bypass an accident at the NM and AZ state line. No to extremely limited cell service, we were in the first few cars detoured. There weren't detour markers put up yet. We drove along hoping the cars in front of us weren't going home! Finally I was able to get gas in a small town and find out what had happened. Google maps was NO help since we had no cell signal and were out of the area downloaded. Interestingly we were closer to Phoenix than Tucson but had no way of knowing. So we're back to road maps as a backup!

 

[Ronstar]

....So we're back to road maps as a backup!

I always have paper road maps with me on road trips. Although I generally use a Garmin and / or cell phone for navigation, there always seems to be some snafu where I need to use the paper map.

I like the bigger screen of the Garmin opposed to the smaller cell phone screen, but the functionality is similar. But I like the idea of preplanning on a computer and sending to the phone as described above. I used my iPad a few years ago and it was great - big screen, ability to switch to TripAdvisor, weather apps on the fly.

 

[explanade]

I downloaded Maps.me on my iPad and iPhone. It had good reviews on App. Store.

So I created some bookmarks on my iPad for an upcoming trip, just to test it out. Then I created an account to save those bookmarks.

Then I logged into the same account on my iPhone to see if it would load the bookmarks.

It did not, though I guess I can email them from my iPad and open them in my iPhone.

Google Maps is automatic, so if you bookmark or save custom maps on one device, you will get them if you log in on another device.

Maybe I'm missing something or there is a way to do it but takes additional steps.

The Maps.me maps are Open Street maps so crowd-sourced. I guess you get points on your profile if you upload data about places.

Anyways I found this article about the company trying to compete with Google and Apple maps on mobile devices:

https://venturebeat.com/2015/02/04/why-maps-me-thinks-it-can-compete-against-google-and-apple-maps/

 

[Lsbcal]

I always have paper road maps with me on road trips. Although I generally use a Garmin and / or cell phone for navigation, there always seems to be some snafu where I need to use the paper map.

...

Some years ago in France the best maps were the Michelin ones.

We took our GPS unit to the UK some years back. Had bought a European map chip beforehand. The Garmin was supposed to work in Europe but our unit failed to pick up the satellite signal. We could not rent a car with GPS in York. So it was back to the Google printout directions and DW trying to navigate. This was before we had cell phones with good mapping.

 

[easysurfer]

Don't want to be a party pooper, but don't some states consider using a smartphone as a GPS illegal and still look at that as using a phone while driving?

Watched a new story months ago where this driver was weaving and got stopped. He was touching the screen on his GPS so was let go without a ticket. Had he been using a phone, not sure if he would have had the same result.

 

[Fedup]

We are not planning on renting a car in Europe. I've just used the phone for walking navigation in places like Rome and it was great. Especially useful when in a labyrinthine section of the city. There was no need to download maps for that. Tmobil used Vodafone in Italy.

We'll be in Canada (Banff, Jasper, Waterton, Calgary) and hopefully the Tmobil reception will be good there. Here is the coverage map. I guess I'll download some map areas while at the local hotel. Have not done this much.

There's all kind of maps there in Italy, especially if you use the tour bus, I forgot the name, it lets you hop on and hop off, with locations where you can be picked up. No driving in Europe for me either.

 

[explanade]

You don't really need maps or GPS to drive from town to town. The road signs lead you the way.

It's when you want to find your hotel or say a specific restaurant or place that you need the turn by turn.

 

[Fedup]

You don't really need maps or GPS to drive from town to town. The road signs lead you the way.

It's when you want to find your hotel or say a specific restaurant or place that you need the turn by turn.

I have trouble understand Boston road signs and they are in English. I need good luck with Italian road signs. We had trouble with train stations when we were there.

 

[explanade]

All you need to know is the name of the town you want to get too.

You will likely go through roundabouts every kilometer and each time, there will be a sign showing the name of that town on the roundabout exit you're suppose to take to reach that town.

 

[Blue Collar Guy]

We bought a new Mid sized SUV in may 2014, we got the navigation as a 1000's of dollars option because it was the only way to get the moon roof. We only open the moon roof a few times a year, but we are FIRE'D we are spending for our wants now instead of our needs.

 

[easysurfer]

All you need to know is the name of the town you want to get too.

You will likely go through roundabouts every kilometer and each time, there will be a sign showing the name of that town on the roundabout exit you're suppose to take to reach that town.

Roundabouts ... another name for "construction too lazy for stop signs" .

As you can tell, I'm not a big fan of them.

 

[explanade]

Roundabouts are way more efficient than intersections.

If you hit the right traffic flow, you only have to slow down, not come to a full stop, to get through what would have been an intersection.

 

[Lsbcal]

Roundabout = political

 

[mpeirce]

Roundabouts are way more efficient than intersections.

They're going in around here (Columbus Ohio) in a big way.

It seems pretty much every new road upgrade includes one or more round-abouts. ODOT is a huge booster of them for efficiency and safety reasons.

Personally, I like them.

 

[easysurfer]

Roundabouts are way more efficient than intersections.

If you hit the right traffic flow, you only have to slow down, not come to a full stop, to get through what would have been an intersection.

Maybe just me, but I handle them fine as long as no other cars are around. Otherwise, too many moving variables for me to calculate .

 

[explanade]

Well you just have to worry about the traffic coming from your left. If you can enter the roundabout without cutting off cars coming from the left, it shouldn't be a problem.

But I've also driven roundabouts in New Zealand, when I was driving on the left side of the road for the first time.

 

[EastWest Gal]

Roundabouts are way more efficient than intersections.

If you hit the right traffic flow, you only have to slow down, not come to a full stop, to get through what would have been an intersection.

Mythbusters did an analysis of roundabouts and they are way more efficient.

Regarding maps-have you considered paper maps? When we were in Iceland we had a Garmin. Our auto tour gave us GPS coordinates-way easier than Icelandic! But the coordinates were wrong and twice we found ourselves on a gravel road going 50 km in the wrong direction. Our paper map and tour book really saved us.

AAA has a lot of paper maps, at least for countries. You may want to get a Fodor's book as a back up. They have maps. I used TripAdvisor as well to plan.

 

[braumeister]

Even the best GPS can steer you wrong.

Two years ago I was driving a rental car in England, using my own GPS (they call them SatNavs over there). Before leaving home, I made sure to update all the UK maps on it.

Well, driving through the Lake District, it routed me through smaller and smaller roads, until finally it told me to turn down a lane that was just barely wide enough for the car, no shoulders, just crops growing on one side and a drystone wall on the other.

Normally I expect the GPS to send me on the quickest way but this was clearly beyond the pale. Fortunately there was a well dressed woman in her garden nearby and I asked her how to get to XYZ Inn where we had a reservation.

She looked at me for a moment, then said "Are you using SatNav?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Well, don't."

Then she kindly gave me good directions to the place. It made me realize that when you're far from a decent sized city, you have to take the GPS routing with a grain of salt.

 

[explanade]

But at least GPS maps are being updated and you can have the most updated map -- updated, not necessarily the most accurate.

Yeah of course we all dealt with paper maps back in the day. I've even taken some from AAA.

However, you have to unfold them and then locate where you are relative to your destination all the time.

No way that beats a GPS showing you where you are centered on the screen, which you can pinch-zoom in and out.

No doubt GPS routing can be wrong sometimes, especially in some relatively unknown places.

 

[Ronstar]

We just drove from Phoenix to the Chicago area. I wanted to take old Rte 66 whenever possible. The GPS really didn't help much there because it wanted to take me the fastest route. I had paper maps and a book with turn by turn directions that DW read to me. Simple.
The ability to enter my own route in a computer and download to GPS would have been great for this.

The GPS was great in finding our hotel each night, restaurants, gas stations, etc.

 

[Corporateburnout]

Roundabouts are way more efficient than intersections.

If you hit the right traffic flow, you only have to slow down, not come to a full stop, to get through what would have been an intersection.

+1. They're called "Rotaries" around here and they're everywhere. Traffic moves around them much more efficiently than intersections.

 

[shortstop14]

Google Maps on my Android phone works fine for me in the US and Canada. And it worked pretty well in Berlin, Prague and London. The main problem in Europe was in using it for transit and walking directions. The offline maps only work for driving directions, not mass transit or walking. So sometimes, usually bigger travel days, I had to turn on the ripoff $10 a day Verizon wireless service. Wi-fi worked fine for phone and text messaging and internet, but the GPS cost a bit.