GPS for touring in France

[jlw107]

Hello
I'm looking into options for a GPS for a two week trip to France.
From my research so far I have been drawn towards the Garmin Etrex models.
However, I'm new to this GPS thing and so I'm still learning how it all works!
Can anyone tell me what additional things I might need such as maps. I understand the base map you get for Europe is fairly basic. Is it possible to purchase a more detailed map which will show all the minor roads in France?
Any help very much appreciated
Thanks

[david143]

I went with the eTrex Vista® HCx with "City Navigator NT Europe" maps. Also bought a 2GB Micro SD Card and a handlebar mount.

Not cheap, but unit will last around 25 hours on 2 good AA rechargeable batteries and provides turn by turn road instructions to get you to your destination.

A lot of money just for 2 week holiday though. Search the Internet for best price, but all in is going to be over £300.

[Jonboy]

Hi

If you go on Garmin's website you'll find under maps an area named Garmin Friends.

This will direct you to Garmin approved suppliers who have maps for most of Europe at roughly the same scale as OS.

However, I haven't found one for all of France - just in groups of Departments.

Here's the link:

http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/mpc/#France

[david143]

Hi

If you go on Garmin's website you'll find under maps an area named Garmin Friends.

This will direct you to Garmin approved suppliers who have maps for most of Europe at roughly the same scale as OS.

However, I haven't found one for all of France - just in groups of Departments.

Here's the link:

http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/mpc/#France

See also http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/mapS ... avEuro.jsp

However, Garmin support on 0808 238 0000 are very good.

[andrew_s]

I'd suggest either the Etrex Legend HCx (£150) or the Etrex Vista HCx (£170, with added barometer and electronic compass). The built in base maps are indeed fairly useless, so you will need extra maps of some sort.

Options are:
a) City Navigator on micro-SD card £50 per large country (UK & Ireland, France & benelux, Spain&Portugal etc
b) City Navigator on micro-SD card £80 for full Europe
c) Mapsource Metroguide Europe on DVD £113
d) City Navigator Europe on DVD £140

prices from http://www.gpsw.co.uk/relitems.html?ProdID=3550
(not sure why the CN Europe DVD isn't listed - it's on the search OK).

The SD cards will be copy protected, so no backups, and also you may not be able to log your rides to the cards so you'd return with a fairly crude log of where you'd been (eg no times/heights logged).

The DVDs can be used on your PC for planning, and you can write as many micro-SD cards as you want. The cards can only be used with your GPS though. You can also leave space on the card for recording for rides in full detail. I've got UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal and adjoining parts of Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy on a 1GB card, with about 100M free for data logging at ~3MB per day, 1sec interval.
Metroguide officially doesn't do routing on the GPS, where it should just be a background map. There is however a data fix from a chap in the Netherlands that allows the routing data that Metroguide uses on the PC to be included in the data transferred to GPS/card. Google MetroWhizz or MetroGold.

All of these will include all roads for the UK, France, Germany etc, subject to very recent changes and a few errors. Some countries may be less complete (eg Greece).
It is difficult planning off a small GPS screen, and I'd be reluctant to just tell it to take me to the next hotel 50 miles off, so I'd recommend taking some larger scale paper maps, like the IGN 1:250,000 series, for route planning.

[andy_scot_uk]

I liked memory map as it gave me ordnance survey detail of France with their digital IGM maps. See http://www.memory-map.co.uk/

I use a mobile phone with GPS and windows mobile 5 which served me well for two trips in France.

[Richard Fairhurst]

The eTrex Legend HCx is an excellent unit. That said, I'd echo andrew s's comment about maps - the IGN blue series are just the right level of detail for touring. If you do take an eTrex, record your track and upload it to www.openstreetmap.org afterwards!

[jlw107]

Thanks to everyone for your help.
I got a Etrex vista in the end & I must say I'm very impressed so far (although I've only been as far as my local supermarket as yet!)