Garmin question...

I feel your pain. We have tried to work through that and have developed a system that works pretty well for us. First we decide what route we plan to travel. We then look at it in our Garmin. We have several choices in our unit. If one of those is not what we want we just enter shorter distances. Another words we do not enter the entire 500 miles. We program it to go say 100 miles to a given town and then put in a new address from there. By doing this we can take the desired route and not spend our viewing time looking at a map. Just a thought.

Get BaseCamp from Garmin. It is a free program that you can use to create routes that can be loaded to your GPS device.

Here is a link to get the program.

Free Download of BaseCamp

Here is a link to more information on this subject and on Bascamp.

More Information

goufgators wrote:
I have a Garmin nuvi 2595. When I map out a route on MapQuest the route selected by MapQuest is not always the exact way I want to travel. So, using click and drag, I move the route to the one I want. But, then when I download it to the Garmin, every time, it down loads the original route selected by MapQuest rather than the one I selected. Any thoughts, ideas, comments will be appreciated. / Thanks...Larry

As you know from the "Is there any GPS that will do..." thread, I've been struggling with a similar problem for a while. I followed DonPD's suggestion of trying to use Basecamp, but I'm not having much luck with that either. Admittedly, I still haven't gotten over the learning curve of Basecamp, so I may be missing something obvious, but it still doesn't look like one can get route compatibility with some of the newer Garmin GPS units (except perhaps by going through a .gpx file transfer, which I still haven't tried yet). I spent some time downloading and going through the user manuals for Garmin units that I might like (including the new RV760 unit) and they all contain this tell-tale description of their file compatibility: "Maps and GPX waypoint files from myGarmin mapping software, including MapSource, BaseCamp, and HomePort." Note that it lists maps and .gpx files, but not route files (.gdb files for MapSource). G-r-r-r-r-r.

So, I'm still stuck with my old Zumo until either I get smarter or I give it up and just use a laptop or netbook while on the road.

Keep us posted if you figure anything out.
Skip

Not sure about your device but in my device there is not a file that only has routes. There is a file in the GPX folder on my device named current.gpx that holds the waypoints and routes. When I connect my device to the computer and open BaseCamp the information from the device can be accessed. It is located on the list on the left side of the screen. If BaseCamp can't see your device then you can't send the routes from BaseCamp to your device. You can copy the current file from the device and open it in BaseCamp but I am not sure if you can than copy it back to the device.

I use BaseCamp to create our routes. When the created route between the beginning and ending points isn't what I want I then create some way-points along my preferred route and then open the route description, insert those way-points, and recalculate the route. One of my Garmins will upload routes that I can then select from the device menu but my other unit will only upload the way-points and I can then recreate the desired routes on the device itself by selecting way-points.

Doesn't your Garmin allow for "via's" to be inserted in your route? Just select a location along the route you want to take and add it as a "via" and that should change your route.

Simple solution:

1. Pick destination location. Use Mapquest to change route as you prefer.
2. Enter destination into the Garmin.
3. Reclick "Where To?" on the Garmin.
4. Scroll to "Cities" and enter a City along the route you chose. Click on that City.
5. Enter that City as a waypoint NOT destination.

Your new route should match the route you selected via Mapquest.....Dennis

I have a Garmin 1450LMT and use routes on it. I use Garmin's Mapsource to create my routes. After downloading from Mapsource to the unit I check the route. Sometimes the unit wants to make a change. I find out where the change occurs and go back to the Mapsource map and add a few additional waypoints then I reload the Mapsource info to the unit.

When we went to NY last May, I created our route in segments in Mapsource. I labeled each route the day of travel. In each route I had the fuel stop I wanted to go to followed by the campground we were going to stop at.

Every evening after we stopped I would load the next days route. It made the trip very simple.

I like the idea of creating a route for each day. That would make things easier.

I use BaseCamp and it has a big learning curve. What I did was under view drop down I selected Toolbars and selected to display all of the toolbars. I would than select each tool and see what I could do with it.

You create a route from waypoints. You first create a starting waypoint then a ending waypoint. You can also have waypoints in between the starting and ending if you want. With waypoints listed on the left side of the map hold the Ctrl Key down, Left Click on the waypoints in the order of the trip highlighting them. Starting to ending and any in between. Once all are highlighted Right Click on one of the highlighted waypoints and select create a route. My starting waypoint is most time my home and the ending is the campground I plan on staying. The in between is most time are a place to eat, fuel up or a rest break.

When modifying a route you can add waypoints or use the tool Insert. to change the route. It allows you to add points to the route faster than making a waypoint. All you do is select a route than go to the place you want to insert a point. The route will recalculate by itself. You can add as many points as you like. This is one tool that you have to play with to get it to do what you want.