Best navigation app?

RJL wrote:
I bought the Magellan Roadmate RV9490T-LMB a few years ago and can honestly say it's one of the biggest wastes of money I have ever spent. Huge mistake. While enroute somewhere one of the "features" they claim is to be able to look for campgrounds near your location. Well all of them are BEHIND you. Sometimes up to 40 miles. On this current trip I pulled into a rest area and looked up campgrounds near me on google and found one 2 miles on our way, the GPS made no mention of it. Has sent us through the heart of Washington DC a few times with our 37 foot gasser and our Jeep JKU that's about 15 feet or so. Gonna stop using this piece of **** and just use old school maps and maybe a better RV GPS after some research on my part.

I bought a Magellan GPS a few years ago to replace an old Garmin for my wife. It was the biggest piece of technology junk I've ever tried - never would work correctly. Made a die-hard Garmin person out of me.

Rob

I bought the Magellan Roadmate RV9490T-LMB a few years ago and can honestly say it's one of the biggest wastes of money I have ever spent. Huge mistake. While enroute somewhere one of the "features" they claim is to be able to look for campgrounds near your location. Well all of them are BEHIND you. Sometimes up to 40 miles. On this current trip I pulled into a rest area and looked up campgrounds near me on google and found one 2 miles on our way, the GPS made no mention of it. Has sent us through the heart of Washington DC a few times with our 37 foot gasser and our Jeep JKU that's about 15 feet or so. Gonna stop using this piece of **** and just use old school maps and maybe a better RV GPS after some research on my part.

Copilot RV allows you to enter the dimensions of your rig and helps you avoid roads that will give you problems. Of course, it all depends on the road data being in the database and it's not always there.

My first year RVing in a 28 foot gasser, TomTom took me down a lane-and-a-half wide road with a 13 percent downgrade in the Poconos. I didn't know it at the time, but only my front brakes were working. We went down in 1st gear and came to a full stop on the flats. Having survived that, I figured that was my 1 gimme and I armed myself with tools to make sure I don't get fooled again.

1. Copilot RV
2. Google Maps with terrain turned on to plan the route
3. Eastern States mountain guide to check where the grades are
4. Google Earth has a route profile feature. Enter your route, right click the line to turn it on.

NEVER pick shortest routes. Use the fastest route to keep you off the tiny roads.

I use the Garmin 760 rv and put my Heighth , weight and length into the gps it keeps us out of places that are not right for the RV I also use waze on my phone. waze is what truckers and other drivers are using to see whats up ahead. It is an app that you interact with so vehicles on the side of the road, traffic accidents and backups are reported as people see them.

I use WAZE or Google maps

bobkatmsu wrote:

rk911 wrote:

bobkatmsu wrote:
What is the best navigation app for a large rig, (62'+) to keep you from going down tight curvy roads or any othe place a big rig shouldn't be.

quick response is a recent copy of the trucker's atlas and your brain.

beyond that you need a GPS and/or GPS app that can be configured for your size rig. our built-in Rand McNally does that as do a few others. but unless you have programmed a route between points A and B and are simply wandering and wondering what's around that corner or over that hill none of them will warn you (AFAIK) that you're approaching a 1-lane dirt road leading nowhere fast. for simple, free navigation we sometimes use Google maps. shows traffic too.

Google maps will show you the shorest route from A to B, which is fine for a car not so much for an rv. I hoy into a couple very tight spots on my last trip in the mountains using google to go from A to B.

+1 on that.

Google Maps got us into some trouble this summer in Virginia

-Speak

We use a Garmin RV760 GPS and the Mountain Directory (have copies of east and west in PDF format). With the Garmin RV GPSs, you enter the type, height, length, width, and weight of your rig and it steers you around places you shouldn't go. Ours has worked well for us for three or four years, now.

Rob

rk911 wrote:

bobkatmsu wrote:
What is the best navigation app for a large rig, (62'+) to keep you from going down tight curvy roads or any othe place a big rig shouldn't be.

quick response is a recent copy of the trucker's atlas and your brain.

beyond that you need a GPS and/or GPS app that can be configured for your size rig. our built-in Rand McNally does that as do a few others. but unless you have programmed a route between points A and B and are simply wandering and wondering what's around that corner or over that hill none of them will warn you (AFAIK) that you're approaching a 1-lane dirt road leading nowhere fast. for simple, free navigation we sometimes use Google maps. shows traffic too.

Google maps will show you the shorest route from A to B, which is fine for a car not so much for an rv. I hoy into a couple very tight spots on my last trip in the mountains using google to go from A to B.

Copilot is what we use on apple/iOS products

bobkatmsu wrote:
What is the best navigation app for a large rig, (62'+) to keep you from going down tight curvy roads or any othe place a big rig shouldn't be.

quick response is a recent copy of the trucker's atlas and your brain.

beyond that you need a GPS and/or GPS app that can be configured for your size rig. our built-in Rand McNally does that as do a few others. but unless you have programmed a route between points A and B and are simply wandering and wondering what's around that corner or over that hill none of them will warn you (AFAIK) that you're approaching a 1-lane dirt road leading nowhere fast. for simple, free navigation we sometimes use Google maps. shows traffic too.