Maps and basemaps

Hello all,

I'm soon embarking on a trip riding the Pan American. I've decided I can stretch to a GPS, so I've been looking into it, and have a couple of questions about maps.

Initially I thought it would be much better to buy a GPS when I unfreight the bike in Anchorage, because they're cheaper there, but I've decided to swallow the extra cost, and get one here before I go so that I can learn how to use it.

1. So, would I be wiser to buy a GPS with a North American basemap, and try to add further Central American and South American basemaps later, or should I get a Euro basemap version and add any Americas maps I need...


2. Can I get an official Garmin GPS here (i.e. with Euro warranty etc) but with a U.S. basemap?

3. I don't really know how big these maps are, in terms of memory. I know the GPS I intend to get (probably a garmin 60 csx) can take a 2gig memory card, but would that be enough for all these maps? I don't know their level of detail, but I was hoping for at least something like an O/S 1:50,000 (1:25000 would be even better)

4. Am I right in assuming that you can remove, change and update additional maps, but that the basemap will always be on the gps?

Much of my route is forest trail stuff, so the 'topo' style maps would be of interest, as would fuel stations and garages etc

Thanks in advance; Your advice is appreciated,
Matt

Matt

This sounds like a great adventure that you’re planning!

If I were embarking on such a journey, I would probably try to get hold of a Garmin 2610 with the Americas basemap.

To answer your last question, the basemap on any Garmin unit cannot be changed, deleted or modified in any way. For general use, you can normally get around the problem of an ‘incorrect’ basemap, by overlaying WorldMap. However, you cannot use the routing function with WorldMap but you can with the basemap. As you will be venturing into areas unsupported by detailed Garmin mapping, the correct basemap may be quite a valuable feature.

Even though it’s an obsolete unit, I suggest the 2610 as it is a powerful unit; you can load a large CF card with all your maps and it doesn’t require ‘NT’ mapsets. I think that you are more likely to get maps of South America in non-NT versions than in NT versions.

The Garmin GPS60CSx uses NT maps – you can get map cards for Mexico, Brazil etc, but they are pretty expensive. You can also buy ‘Topo’ maps for the US and Canada.

You will not be able to buy a US basemap Garmin unit in the UK – find a US dealer who is prepared to send one (I have a contact or two at home).

Hope this helps.

Greg

Hello Greg,

Thank you very much for your help;
Yes it should be quite a trip; Alaska to Tierra del Fuego on an 1150. Been done many times before, but a first for me!

I have some more questions for you...

1. Can I put many maps onto one GPS?

Could I for instance, have a North American basemap, with added 'world' map, and mexico map?

In effect, can I keep adding maps until the memory is full?

2. I've seen the world base map for sale; I'm guessing the detail is limited; Is it stil worth getting?

Thank you again for your help,
Matt

I've run both a Garmin 60C and now a 2820 on my bike, so I'll share some additional thoughts.

Getting a GPS now and becoming familiar with it is a very good idea... Not just the GPS, but travel planning on the PC Mapsource software, using Google Earth for image detail is an awesome tool...

The 60C(x) will give you no audible warnings (that you can hear while moving at speed) of upcoming turns... (this is not critical, if you keep an eye on the countdown to next turn, but It is nice to hear a beep or voice direction if you are using it for complex detailed routing. If you will not have an intercom, then this doesn't matter to you...

Using the basemap for GPS generated routing is almost worse than useless... the roads that it has tend to give interesting choices... (the week before I bought my first routable Garmin map, I was routed through the center of Paris.... )

Basemap is good to have, but if you have a world-map product for the area that you want, not critical. For a "better than Garmin" WorldMap product for an affordable price visit www.smellybiker.com. (This guys is currently traveling in the Americas (going the other way) and building up an impressive world map at the same time... obviously he's making a bigger effort to get the data right for the Americas...And he's getting ready to release a worldwide 100m TOPO layer in his product...)

Two Gigabytes is the space that Garmin CityNavigator9 NT Europe takes... this has a lot of detail

Garmin's CityNavigator North America is quite cheap, and if you are planning on any "detail" navigation problems (finding people/businesses) in cities, then it's a good investment.

I'd suggest you travel with a laptop and do detailed travel planning on the fly... (on the PC... much easier than working with the GPS) you can change the map detail loaded on the GPS that way, and not have to buy a memory card bigger than 1 or 2 gigs...

If you don't want a PC along, then buying a couple 2 gigs cards should be enough for quite a lot of different kinds of map detail for the Americas. (CityNavigator, Worldmap, some selected TOPO stuff...) Arrange it accordingly, and you'll only have to change cards a couple times...

Al...

With Garmin products, you can put different map products on the Same GPS... but you need to do it all at once... (each map download erases the map data from the GPS) Mapsource is an easy way to do this... open a map product, select the map tiles... open another one, select tiles on that...etc... do the download... (takes a while with bigger memory cards)

See my above post about Worldmap... (Also... Garmin must be about due to release an update... theirs is rather old...)

Al...

Thank you; That's very helpful.

I'll be avoiding cities, so the 'topo' maps are of more interest to me.

Considering mapping, and the smelly biker map, are there good non-garmin maps that will work on a Garmin GPS?

Ta,
Matt

There are getting to be quite a few... Mostly regional things made up by enthusiasts... The following list is not exhaustive, just what's caught my fancy in the past couple years...

I've had The Canary Islands for a while now, I've heard that Morocco is pretty good.

The TOPO overlay maps are most common, because the techniques for doing it are free, data is free... just requires time and effort. Good effort has been made for The UK, and Europe. ()

These three links should get you well started...

http://www.elsinga.net/index.php?id=172
http://www.smc.org.uk/Publications/Publications.php?C=12
http://www.gpsmaps.de/page2.htm

Once you get your maps sorted... depending on which GPS you get... there is also the Issue of loading it up with extra POI's... (these are points of interest that don't come included with the map data... a little search will reveal millions of them, separated by subject, for many parts of the world...

Al...