Streets and Trips Alternative for Mexico?

[kca87]

Hi there,

For several years, we used Microsoft Streets and Trips along with the GPS attachment in our laptop and it was great because we did not need an internet connection to find our way around.

Has anyone found a good alternative to S&Ts that does not rely on internet that can be used in a laptop or tablet?

I know S&T still works, but now the maps are outdated now - many of the streets I use don't appear, etc.

Thanks!

[bighatnohorse]

There is a Basecamp user's forum.
Garmin's Basecamp user forum

[Belgique]

Briansue: I got my NuVI 2689 Sat and started playing with Basecamp. My experience just like yours. S&T so much easier. Maybe we can figure Basecamp out eventually. Thanks for the how to video links.

[briansue]

Here's another example screenshot of S&T - showing centro in San Miguel de Allende - most street names - if I zoomed in all the say (I didn't) all the one way streets have arrows indicating direction - this is typical of what we can see on S&T for most towns in North America - dotted lines show alleys and pedestrian only streets......

[briansue]

I found some online tutorials for Base Camp but I think it will just take practice and working with it to figure out how best to use it. These tutorials could be useful. I still haven't really gotten into it so am certainly no authority on how useful it might be. We do use our NUVI and do find it very useful. We do prefer the ability to have a large screen for planning that Base Camp offers - now if we could only figure out the tricks to it......


http://192.168.1.1:8181/http://www.newenglandriders.org/Learn_BaseCamp_PC.pdf

https://garminbasecamp.wikispaces.com/Trip+Planner

https://garminbasecamp.wikispaces.com/Maps

http://www8.garmin.com/learningcenter/training/basecamp/

http://static.garmincdn.com/basecamp/en/Default.htm

http://rotweilermaps.com/usingbasecamp.htm

http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/tutorials/how-to-open-maps-in-garmin-basecamp

[Wm_Elliot]

I've had Basecamp for two years and it is quirky. I've come close but have not had much success tailoring routes to export to the Nuvi.

[briansue]

I haven’t really figured the Garmin Base Camp program out yet but I have been fooling around with it. So far all I can say is there must be an easier way. With S&T I can force a route quite easily by putting in waypoints and just telling it to go from point to point. With Base Camp I cannot figure out how to do it easily – though I was able to create a route after much time and effort. I can even create a route more easily in the Garmin that with Base Camp on the computer – I would think it should be the other way around. I am sure I am missing something.

To clarify – you can tell any GPS to go from one place to another and just go the way the GPS tells you to go. But there may many reasons to take a route other than what the GPS says. I use the term force a route as a term of my own making. There may be a more technical term. An example would be when the GPS just wants you to use cuotas or Interstate Highways and we want to take the libres or back roads. So we can put in “waypoints” and tell the GPS to go from this point to this point to this point and so on until we have the designed the route we want to take.

Having the capability to design a route on the larger screen of a computer rather than the small screen of a handheld device is what makes these computer map planning programs valuable to us. We can see the whole route and we can see all the fine points we need to see to create a route that goes where we want. An example might be taking a periferico / libramiento instead of the route that takes us through the middle of Guadalajara or Mexico City.

Now that I seem to have learned how to post a picture I will try to post some screenshots of maps to compare S&T to Base Camp to show what they look like and how they show the same route. I use the Snipping Tool in Windows to create the screenshots.

Here are two shots showing a route from Guanajuato to Ajijic. Doing this in S&T took about 10 seconds while with Base Camp it could have been as much as a half hour. Admittedly I do not know how to use Base Camp.

Base Camp route


S&T route


And here are two shots of Guanajuato showing an overview of city streets. Both S&T and Base Camp can zoom in even closer to show finite details of the streets.

Base Camp Guanajuato


S&T Guanajuato

[briansue]

I started to sort of learn something new today. I had forgotten about the Garmin Base Camp but I decided to do my Garmin NUVI updates today and out of curiosity opened Base Camp to take another look at it. With the NUVI downloading updates the Base Camp can also update. So I checked the new roads and they are on both. Then I started just fooling around with Base Camp to see what can be done with it. You can plan and save routes and you can add waypoints and things like that. I do not know if it works as a GPS but you can plan your route in Base Camp and then put it on the NUVI. The advantage to me is that you work on your planning on a full size computer screen instead of a tiny little limited use screen. I don't think it is anywhere near as advanced as S&T as far as functions go but it can be a way to plan and save routes and do other useful things. I didn't spend much time with it so don't know a whole lot about it yet but I do hope to spend more time with it to see what else can be done with it. So as a new roads replacement for S&T this could be part of the answer - buy the 2757 for around $200 directly from Garmin and get free lifetime updates as well as Base Camp and then coordinate them and sync them and use the NUVI with the Base Camp planned route as your GPS as you go down the road. Seems to have street level mapping of every street we know of in North America. Probably take some practice.

[tleeming]

I agree with Briansue..there is nothing on the market that comes close to S&T for route planning etc.
I tried Good Sam but it doesn't cut it.
I decided to move on ....having driven the route down here many times, I just deal on a day to day basis. I have a stock gps in my Dodge but I use copilot gps in the US and Canada on my iPad mini. The DW can check for poi's etc while driving and the screen view is much nicer.
I'd love to have S & T on my iPad though..maybe someday
T

[bighatnohorse]

Wm.Elliot wrote:
Plus there are reports that S&T does not work well on Windows 8 or 10.

I bought a small inexpensive tablet (2 in 1 computer) with bluetooth and 8.1
It works with S&T 13 and it's bluetooth connectivity is faster than any laptop that I've had before.
(The GPS is an old wireless bluetooth hock puck style.)
It's small and easy to position in the truck cab. And it has hours of battery life. $200
Only the table half shown:

[briansue]

Has anyone found a good alternative to S&Ts that does not rely on internet that can be used in a laptop

That is part of the original post - which asks the question.....

Not to take anything away from the efforts of those who post about maps to use on a phone but to us there are none out there that remotely compare to S&T and the ones you use on a handheld for the most part are very difficult to use due to small size of the map.

For those who are not exactly familiar with S&T and what you can do with it I can only say that you can do so much with it that none of these others even begin to compare with S&T. I think the only one that might come close is Delorme and based on what I have read and learned and asked on Laptop GPS World . . . http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/ . . . where mapping programs are reviewed and compared - there just is nothing like S&T. Even though we know it is outdated and will not be reissued with updates we will continue to use it as our primary map planning program.

A few years ago I created a tutorial with some tips on how to use S&T. Over the years I have continued to add to the original attempt so many of the other things you can do with S&T have been added - but the tutorial only appears in its original form online at . . . http://www.rvtechlibrary.com/electronics/gps_streets_trips.php . . . Much has been added to that project but I have never posted it online and don't really know how to. But if you look at that tutorial you might get to see just the tip of the iceberg of what can be done with S&T. (If anyone has or knows of a website where an extensive tutorial can be posted I would post it - let me know - it is close to 7,000 words and many screen shots - so quite a few pages)

I have almost all of our trips saved in my files where I can just click to have a map on my laptop of the exact route to take from point A to point B. I can follow that route using a small GPS receiver that sits on the dash.

I also use a Garmin 2757 so I can see any new roads that have been created since S&T expired. There are not that many new roads but the Garmin can be useful for other things. But it is still not S&T.

So to address the original post - there is still not anything I am aware of that can replace S&T - you can try on the Laptop GPS World website but I am pretty sure you will get the same answer I have repeatedly gotten from the experts and the webmaster on that website - NO - there is nothing that can replace S&T.

[tleeming]

Try http://navmii.com/ . I used it on the way down in Mexico and it worked ok. You don't need wifi or cell. Just need a gps chip in your phone or tablet.....and it's free

[navegator]

I have been using my tablet and Google maps to look at the routes, granted I need the WiFi for access, I use what ever they offer at the different RV parks, not good but better than nothing, the feature I like is the ability to "walk" on the street and actually see the place before I arrive, depending the out side or entrance to the place and how not to get in a bind with one way streets or dead ends.

navegator

[briansue]

I did some searching and have been searching for quite awhile for anything that even comes close to replacing S&T and there just seems to be nothing out there that even remotely has the functionality of S&T - not even close. So I guess we will continue to use S&T with our Garmin for as long as we can and hope someone comes up with something that is actually useful.

http://360.here.com/

http://forums.windowscentral.com/windows-10-mobile/382510-here-drive-here-maps-not-available-w10.html

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/windows-maps/9wzdncrdtbvb

http://www.howtogeek.com/221988/how-to-get-offline-maps-in-windows-10%E2%80%99s-maps-app/

[Wm_Elliot]

briansue wrote:

Plus there are reports that S&T does not work well on Windows 8 or 10.

We have one computer with 8 and one with 10 and S&T works great in both - bit not touch screen obviously.

The many reports I've read online say otherwise - it's good it works for you. (I still use 7)