Best Navigation system for RV'ers?

nadsab wrote:
By POI - I assume you mean Point of Interest?

For your map books have you ever used the Delorme atlases?

Which model number of the Garmin do you use?

Yes ... I meant Points of Interest. I currently have over 800,000 POI's in my RV's Garmin navigator ... and it still has a lot of it's built-in memory left. I don't even need it's card slot yet to add more memory. For instance, one of my POI files is freshwater bodies of water for the entire U.S. - even including desert ponds that dry up part of the year.

I've never tried Delorme atlases, but I wonder if Delorme atlases include such things as these - that Benchmark maps do include:

- Complete roadway maps overlayed over topography maps
- Jeep roads, including high clearance warnings as appropriate
- Bodies of water that are dried up a lot of the year
- Washes with water in them only during the wet season
- Mud flats
- The names of just about every canyon in every mountain range
- Aqueducts
- Many of the springs in the wilderness
- Mines sites out in the middle of nowhere
- The names of just about every mountain ridge in every mountain range
- Obscure tourist attractions such as rock art sites, pony express stations, overlooks, old ranch sites, geology sites, old trails, etc.
- Steep grade warnings on wilderness roads
- Etc.

The Garmin model I have is an LM3550: It's touch screen is now glass and takes only light finger touches or swipes just like iPhones/iPads, it has finger tip zoom and scrolling just like iPhone/iPads, it has instant ON/OFF, it's built-in speaker is a loud/clear actually usable one in it's dashmount base, it's new V3.0 operating system has many changes to facilitate faster access to menus and many navigation features have been redone and added. My LM3550 now has an option to overlay all of it's roads onto an actually somewhat clear, accurate, and usable topo map background.

Regarding use of iPhones/iPads instead of specialized navigation systems, I have a couple of questions that have never been answered to my satisfaction:

1) Do iPhones/iPads have voices to help guide you along a route or do they only "visually show you" the route by looking on their screens?

2) Can iPhones/iPads navigate for you completely independent of the cellular system ... for use out in the middle of nowhere?

The laptop/GPS-receiver approach also looks like a navigation system with great potential, assuming you use it with a very compact laptop that the RV's passenger can use on their lap when traveling (in small RV's where there's not enough room for the laptop to be on a bracket for the driver to access) and that you can get "Benchmark-class" map bases from somewhere into your laptop that will work well in conjunction with the GPS system feeding your laptop. I considered this approach to navigation years ago but couldn't find any maps to use it with that were as good offroad as the Garmin map system - for use onroad and in cities the laptop/GPS method appeared OK, however.