Leaving on long trip, best GPS
We are leaving in 6 weeks on our longest trip to date (6 weeks) From Florida to Maine. We need to buy a GPS,do we need an "RV" GPS?? Opinions please!
Forum Discussion
Tina and Greg,
You were very smart to ask, but notice that the answers you got varied. There is no one best answer for everybody.
The problem is simple and two sided.
If you are really traveling, you will be out of internet frequently and in the right places, it can be for days at a time.
If you want to plan, a stand-alone GPS is always at a disadvantage because they simply cannot display the route in the detail that is often required.
All that being said, consider using all the tools available:
Google Maps can be good, but lack many features and without great effort, it is network dependent.
Waze and a Traffic GPS are only good for traffic in urban areas. (As you seem to be east coast people, this may take some getting used to.)
Any good GPS with a "Lane Assist" function is a great thing for the driver. It unloads that portion of the navigation.
Doing the planning - either daily or trip long - with a mapping program like Street Atlas can make the rest of the excursion much more relaxing. As for clearances and lot of other things, go to Discovery Owners and download the things you want like low clearances to make them show up on the SA screen.
We run both. The drivers GPS gets loaded with the planned route for the day, and the laptop has the whole plan and its GPS follows us along. We find that this works out very well.
If you are carrying internet, you can also use GasBuddy to reduce the cash bleed that all excursions are.
Matt
You were very smart to ask, but notice that the answers you got varied. There is no one best answer for everybody.
The problem is simple and two sided.
If you are really traveling, you will be out of internet frequently and in the right places, it can be for days at a time.
If you want to plan, a stand-alone GPS is always at a disadvantage because they simply cannot display the route in the detail that is often required.
All that being said, consider using all the tools available:
Google Maps can be good, but lack many features and without great effort, it is network dependent.
Waze and a Traffic GPS are only good for traffic in urban areas. (As you seem to be east coast people, this may take some getting used to.)
Any good GPS with a "Lane Assist" function is a great thing for the driver. It unloads that portion of the navigation.
Doing the planning - either daily or trip long - with a mapping program like Street Atlas can make the rest of the excursion much more relaxing. As for clearances and lot of other things, go to Discovery Owners and download the things you want like low clearances to make them show up on the SA screen.
We run both. The drivers GPS gets loaded with the planned route for the day, and the laptop has the whole plan and its GPS follows us along. We find that this works out very well.
If you are carrying internet, you can also use GasBuddy to reduce the cash bleed that all excursions are.
Matt
