I consider myself quite competent with GPS (sailing, driving, hiking, and now biking; dedicated units /and or phone or tablets and mapping soft) but must confess that the Edge Touring is in a category of its own, because of its strange routing preferences...

Example -- I want to pedal to a destination that is 20km as-the-crow-flies from where I am. Google maps suggests a 34km course. The Edge comes at 96km (!?). So I concoct a route that I export to the Edge. Unfortunately I forgot to disable Edge's automatic rerouting such that after missing a turn from the original course, the Edge recalculated a course, adding 20+ kms to the plan. Restoring the original route did not work as the Edge insists on recalculating and I was no longer on the initial route...

I will experiment until I figure if the best use for the Edge is a paperweight, but maybe I can avoid wasting time.

As of now I have 3 questions:

1. How to best use the Edge to map (and ideally always give turn-by-turn advice) for a static course (a course edited on Garmin Connect)
2. How to return to such a course if/when you happened to have deviated. (eg: turn-by-turn will not work until you are back on course -> eyes on the map)
3. Is there a way to differentiate between types of "unpaved roads". There are perfectly fine gravel bike paths that are more pleasant to ride than potholed roads, but there are also tracks that are suitable for a lean mountain bike but not quite for a loaded touring rig...

p.s.: I understand that the Edge routing is predicated on the maps. Co-pilot suggested the very same egregious routing and that cannot be a coincidence. So another way of formulating my question might be a more general "how to best coerce the Edge into a reasonable course".

p.s. 2: I am currently in Western Europe. The situation might be different (better?) in North America, and (worse?) elsewhere.

I do not own the touring model I only own a 500. Does the edge have an option to choose "off road" vs fastest, shortest, etc.?

Yes it does. Supposedly identical to the 500 family but without ant+ support for sensors.

I have the Edge Touring and really like it. I always plan my route on Garmin Connect first. When using Garmin Connect, I normally map my course with Google Maps because they seem to be more reliable around me than are the Open Street Maps. For example, bike paths show very few entry points on the local OSM, while Google Maps seems to have properly marked them all, so plotting the course works properly on Google Maps and not on OSM. I disable auto rerouting for exactly the reason you mention. When I go off-course far enough, the route seems to stop being saved. But, when I return to the path, the GPS resumes tracking my trip and announcing the turns in the usual way. I just don't have a record of the trip when I'm done under those conditions. There may be a work-around for that -- perhaps pausing the recording until I'm back on the track, but I don't know if that would work. It just hasn't been that important to me. FWIW

If it has an off road option then it should take you to your destination as the crow flies.