I got a GPS for a tour, and quickly abandoned it for useful navigation in favor of paper maps. I haven't seen anything to change my mind for route finding.

One loaded with motels, restaurants, etc. could be useful. But my new favorite geek toy is a smart phone with GPS and google maps. It has all that, and freshly updated; it's lighter than my old GPS; finds my location quicker from a cold start; and I'm carrying it anyway. (Still worth carrying a decent point and shoot camera, though.)

I've used a Garmin GPSMap60csx for years and love it. On our annual 600+ summer WI ride I plot the routes onto the device in advance. Spectacular. Every turn is preceded by a beep in case I'm not paying attention. There are a lot of "little details" that you just need to figure out in order to tweak your ideal experience, but I'm a believer.

I've been eyeing the Delorme unit lately and wondering if it solves some of my minor issues (example: Garmin mapsource does not include multi use trails as routable paths, but there are work-arounds). But super detailed usage issues can only be discovered in real use. Manuals never get detailed enough.

Our annual WI ride has two of us using GPS and 30+ using paper maps. When they get confused they always turn to us to figure it out. And several times a day I end up correcting others as they make wrong turns based on their map reading. And we chuckle when someone calls out for a "page-turning" break. 6000+ miles of group riding has repeatedly shown GPS to be better than paper for convenience.

Now having said that, I always carry a paper map in the trunk bag. And one day I kept refreshing (recalculating) my route because it disagreed with the paper maps (paper maps show the exact route and my gps route is derived from it) until I discovered "recalculate" means "try a different route thru the same waypoints." Arrggghhh.

We just got a Dakota 20 also. Haven't used it enough yet to give a good review. Got it for a good price online $219.

Taking it to Canyonlands NP Horseshoe Canyon this weekend so we'll see how it goes.


I'm a GIS/GPS professional. I work with mapping software and mapping grade Trimble GPS units at work, but often just go with paper topos or my own sense of direction when out on my own.

Awesome area, enjoy the impressive pictographs there.

Use my Garmin705 for biking and for navigation on both bike and car while traveling. It has worked out real well for both. However, on two occasions, one in FL and one in CO, the thing took us on a complete circle of roads before steering us on the correct path. First time it was irritating as the circle was a couple miles in strange territory. Second time it was sort of funny because it took us out one driveway, down the street to another driveway, back into the parking lot, then out the first driveway and turned us the correct direction. Total of less than a block.

Only disadvantage is that the screen is a bit small for night driving solo.

I don't like using the smartphone for communication and navigation. From what others have told me too often when they need the smartphone for an urgent matter the battery is done for by all the navigation. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

Treated myself to a Garmin 305 in Jan 2010 as a b'day gift. Love it. I like that it tracks my location and vitals, and I can upload all that good stuff. It makes it easy to keep track of my rides, and I've programmed in a few training intervals and routes. For the most part, all that works well.

The device is much less useful as a general purpose GPS and useless as a car navigation tool. In the woods it would be far better than a compass in most instances, but other products are better suited to that use.

I don't have a GPS, and I don't particularly want one. The issue is that some people will dutifully follow the GPS, while not having a clue as to where they actually are, this can be a problem when a road is only partly winter maintained. I have seen roads where the snowplow actually turns around at one point and goes back, leaving a big snowbank in the middle of the road. If you do not realise that this happens, you can run right into that snowbank. They usually do this, because there are no people along that part of the road, so they don't want to spend the time and fuel to plow it.

You rely on visual clues to place yourself on a map, so an utter lack of those (big body of water), or an unfamiliar scenery cluttered with details can cause you to lose your position. I never rely solely on GPS for navigation when paddling. I also bring maps / nautical charts and a compass with me and make sure I can position myself on the paper map at all times. I also find it easier to plan my paddling trips or next day's leg on a paper map / chart than on a small screen of a handheld GPS device.

But GPS is a nice addition. It gives me speed/distance/bearing info, and it can place me on the map when visibility is low or I'm lost otherwise. The small screen can be difficult to read in bright sunlight, also finding a useful zoom level may require constant fiddling with the unit. Total waterproofness is a must, floatability is a plus. Even if it floats, I tie it onto something, either my person or kayak.

I tend to keep the thing on all the time during paddling. I can budget for two full tour days per one set of freshly recharged NiMHs (my unit is an old Magellan Meridian Color, takes two AAs).

All this said, I did circle a couple of islands for nearly an hour once, despite having both GPS and laminated paper map. I was looking for a specific place to camp, and GPS and map were giving contradicting information. I couldn't make any sense out of it, so I just took to land. After walking around a bit I confirmed I was in the correct place and set up camp, still not quite sure of what had happened.

Next morning, I took one look at the (borrowed) paper map and noticed it had folded slightly when they fed it into laminating machine. Fold went straight accross my destination island, changing its shape and size on the map considerably. I was too tired before to notice it.

--J

SITUATIONAL AWARENESS

Shouted out because that is what is missing when GPS is blamed for someone having navigation problems. People have been getting in trouble, and even dying, for generations because they blindly followed whatever navigation aid they were using.

There is just no substitute for situational awareness. With it you always know about where you are. Without it you are merely following bread crumbs and hoping they don't lead to the cannibal's cave.

Yes, you need to have a basic idea of where you are, which I find is easier on a map, because a map is a big picture, maps cover hundreds of kilometres, so you can always find yourself on a map, all you need is a marked intersection of two roads, and these days with 911 being pretty much ubiquitous roads are a lot better marked then they used to be, I know of only one road that doesn't have a name, but it's not a real road..... The problem with GPS, is the GPS screen is small picture, it covers a tiny area, fine in the city, where that tiny area might be 4 or 5 blocks in size, not so much in the country where you don't see cross roads until your pretty much on top of them. The difficulty with some GPS and a lot of online maps is that they don't mark road types the way old paper maps did, it's an issue with products like Google Maps as well, where paved and gravel roads are marked the same.

Your personal preference is just fine. I wasn't shooting at any particular navigation device since I've seen people have trouble, even unto death, with all kinds of navigation devices, even ground radar control.

The key is that you have a system that allows you to have situational awareness, a sense of about where you are. Whatever works, works.

I'm just saying it's more difficult with a 3"x3" screen that covers maybe 1 square mile, then it is with a 2' x 3' piece of paper that covers a few hundred square miles, because positional indicators may be visible that are further away then the tiny GPS map will indicate. Yes some GPS units may be able to zoom out, but honestly this is 50+ and trying to read a map that is marked in a 2 point font is going to be an exercise is futility for most of us, even with our glasses. In cities the GPS maps seem to be pretty good, in rural areas they tend not to be, especially here on the Bruce, where I have seen people with GPS driving through empty space, because the county road they are on, isn't in the right spot on the map, it's way off to the side, even though your on it.

Gee, I'm sorry you are misinterpreting me as arguing with you. All I'm saying is that what you are doing works for you. That is great. That is what navigation is supposed to do, work for the user so they can stay oriented. But, your experience is not everyone's. Different people have different visualization abilities, different needs, etc. For them your system may not be as useful as another; even a small screen gps unit.

I live on a dead end road comes from the E/W highway to the North. The same named street coming from the south dead ends just East of our house. (Confused yet?) Mapquest, et al show the streets as one with an offset. I can always tell when someone has been using Mapquest, GPS or similar. We see headlights in our front window, hear tires screech, and see a car sitting in front of our house before backing up. Comes from 2 adjacent farms being subdivided. Plat map is not what is really there. Durn Cherry growers anyway.

Don'tcha just hate when they do that.... I know of one street (Oxford Street) where it got cut in half by a major highway, then shifted over because of a factory needing to expand a large parking lot into a massive parking lot, the factory could do this because it employs half the city it's located in, and it's suppliers employ the other half. You would think that they might call one piece Oxford Street, another piece Oxford Road and another piece Oxford Drive, to keep it from being confusing, but naw, that would be too smart.... Had a cousin move into a house on that street, and of course we start looking on the wrong piece...

I have been there before, so this is a revisit.

The weather did not turn out so well for a camping trip this weekend so we postponed. It's only about 3 hrs drive away. We'll try again in the next few weeks.

GPS is a fun toy, but though I've had 5 including two before the maps were included, I can't say they are that useful except on occasion. Our last Canada canoe trip I took one to insure I could double check my estimate of location as there were some dangerous rapids with a history of loss of life where we had to catch the portage take outs in a very strong current before it was too late. That was useful, though inaccurate as few maps are GPS corrected. Typical errors on that trip was about 1 km; mostly map error (old paper maps) of course.

I lost my last Garmin, an Etrex. Good hardware, but poor and expensive maps and a poor manual. I replaced it with a Delome PN-60. I like it far more than any Garmin product I've owned over the years except for my Garmin ForeRunner heart rate monitor.

Delorme has great manuals and far better maps for messing around in the woods which we do often. The base map, Topo North America 9.0 which resides on the PC and in the receiver is better than Garmin's equivelant. I use it occasionally for route planning and use the GPS as a car navigator or just print out a map with instructions, or both.

No voice guidence unless you plug it into a portable pc, but it does chirp twice when approaching a turn and once at the turn.

I enjoy having a GPS, but what makes it or breaks it for me is the software and not the harware. For $30.00/year, Delorme allows you to download an unlimited number of the detailed USGS 1:24K Quads. I must have over 60 by now and have about 8 months left on the first $30.00.

I do like my Garmin ForeRunner heart rate monitor GPS wrist unit. It's great for both running and cycling as you get a nice heart rate curve vs time and distance as well as cadence. However, GPS for biking in the woods is very inaccurate for distance traveled. So I turn it's GPS off and use the wheel sensor. GPS algoritms can't handle the numerous and high concentration of turns and hills. All mine have run around 15% low. For running or on the road, they do well.

The modern receivers with the new chips do very well under thick tree-cover.

Al

Thanks, a good cross section of experience.
I did my research and settled on a Garmin GPSmap 78s, then priced out the unit and charts and maps I would need for canoeing, biking and hiking. In the end, it was too rich for my wallet. (Don't you hate it when your eyes are bigger than your wallet?) I'll have to catch up on my savings account then will be able to buy it next year, if I still want it.

One question and it can be tough to answer, lots of these items have excellent, up to date, US maps, but go to a place outside the US and the maps leave a lot to be desired. I've heard of one unit, not sure which one, I don't have the article handy, that contained a map of a country in South America, where the map was based on a paper map from 1957....

That certainly does not apply to the UK. Our OS (Ordnance Survey) maps are absolutely fantastic and you can get GPS devices which include this mapping.

I agree about some other places though. I went on holiday to the Greek island of Corfu and tried to buy a good map but all I could find was the same crappy map in every shop.

One day, I hired a bike and went off exploring and stopped off in a village which had a few tourist shops. I bought a bottle of the local olive oil from one shop and as I left, the owner of the shop next door started hassling me to buy something from his. His English wasn't great and I don't speak Greek so communicating with him wasn't easy.

I tried to explain that I wanted a good map - he had very good map, come buy it ... Next minute he is waving yet another copy of the crappy map at me! I said it was no good. No, it very good map. I was cracking up ... I led him out of the shop and pointed at the road, then the map and asked him to show me that road on the map. He couldn't - it wasn't marked on it. I then said, okay, forget the road, show me his village on the map - that wasn't marked on it either, despite the settlement clearly being many hundreds of years old!

He smiled, shrugged his shoulders, tossed the map to one side and asked me if I wanted to buy a jar of his honey instead!

What is common and even more frustrating are streets that change their names mid-street. Enter the street from one end and it has one name. Enter from the other end and it has a different name. Sometimes, I presume it is because many people navigate by landmark rather than by street name, the residents on the street don't even know the difference exists.

That brings up a problem with all kinds of navigation: map accuracy. Many times the data upon which maps, whether paper or electronic are based is just not accurate. Sometimes that is because things have changed since the last time a survey was done. Sometimes it is deliberate because residents have put out misleading information.

All in all no matter what navigation aid there is no substitute for local knowledge and situational awareness. This is true whether driving a car, flying an airplane, conning a ship, or just doing back country work off the road system.

Sorry about my brief statement. What the GPS did NOT show was that the road is closed in the winter. Not maintained nor plowed. He thought he was on a nice through road, got stuck, and died of exposure before rescue crews could get to him.

A common problem with all kinds of navigation devices. Charts that do not include hazards to navigation, maps that are not current, people who actively resist having accurate information published about their area, city lots that have multiple addresses, aviation charts that have wrong locations for nav aids and geographic hazards..... I don't think a map or chart exists than can be 100% trusted as a sole navigation aid.

My point is that although people often blame GPS for navigation errors, in fact it isn't the GPS. It is the base mapping data that is the problem. That problem would be there whether GPS, paper, or some other presentation.