Keeping the Windmill Alive - Where was your last trip with your GPS?

I'm new to the GPS world. We bought a C340 and headed north from North Carolina to PA to visit some of my wife's family. We had not been in years. I must say that the trip was very enjoyable with Jill directing the way. We plugged in all of the addresses and it took us straight there and back with no problems. This was the most stress free trip that I have ever took. We threw away all of the paper maps. From now on Jill will lead the way.

Here's an attempt to getting it back.

My last trip with my Nuvi 660 was to Starbucks about a mile from home. I wanted to test the Starbucks POI, icon, and sound I just loaded. I'm happy to report that the coordinates, along with visual and audible alerts, were considerably accurate for this particular store location.

We just got back from our Niagara wineries trip and noticed the wineries.csv file had some wrong listings, even the built in Garmin attractions listings had one bad address that we went to, probably the largest winery in Niagaga, the Peller Estates winery takes you to what looks like the actual residence?? I don't think they want the public driving up their driveway... The public entrance for the tours etc. is about a mile plus down the road, not that big a deal but one of the winery.csv listings was about 8 miles wrong... We had a great trip.

I originally had a DeLorme GT-120 hooked up to my laptop, but my wife was ready to divorce, if not kill, me after a few trips. She didn't like holding the laptop on her lap and didn't want to play navigator any longer. Therefore, I ended up buying a Nuvi 350 so I could put it on the dash in front of me so I could navigate and have since used it on numerous trips. My wife liked it so much that she insisted on one of her own, so I purchased a Nuvi 650 for her and it has saved our marriage. It has saved us many miles by taking shortcuts that we would not have had any idea about around Orlando (to the many shops, restaurants, tourist spots, etc). I have also been able to use the detour function saving me a lot of time due to construction.

Still on Vacation in disney world.. And have the GPS with us.. Jill someimes took us to a wrong location but is still doing good no less.. Cound not be without it.. Will report more when I get back this weekend!!!

We were on our way from Minneapolis to Dubuque for the night...and when I saw the signs for Mason City and Clear Lake I was drawn to stop...I was almost 3 the night the music stopped...but was 15 when Don McLean released American Pie...if you are a Rock and Roller Clear Lake evokes a hushed reverence...it did for my wife and me.

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Regards, Ted

We use the Zumo daily either in our truck when we are pulling our RV, or I use it on my bike when I explore the area around the place we just traveled to. Our last stint took us from Glacier NP in MT to Rock Springs, WY (We got smoked out by wild fires).
Tomorrow we will be heading to Ouray, CO.
The Zumo has worked flawlessly except for a few quirks here and there and we enjoyed having it on our travels around the US since we bought it last November. Tonight it guided us to a nice microbrewery in town.

We know, it takes a lot of stress out of traveling.

Used my new 670 for the first time in anger last night. Went from Hull to an address in Blackrod Bolton in the UK.

I though overall it was excellent, in fact I loved it. The only thing it does not seem to do is buy some beers at the bar.

1) Using the FM transmitter the directions and MP3 player were very clear.
2) Wide screen made viewing excellent.
3) The trip information was good and had lots of detail.
4) MP3 player using the SD card was excellent, hours of music all catalogued.
5) The traffic master gives info of any problems on my route with the ability to detour if needed. I especially liked the little triangle that popped up if there were any problems, this even advised of the minutes delay.
6) Ability to review all of turn instructions.

Only thing I found strange was, most of the route was on the same motorway, but in the turn instructions it would say keep right and go onto M62, even though I was on the M62 and not coming off. Does anyone know why this would happen?
Also there was about a 2 second lag time.

We are touring New England in September and I cannot wait to use the 670 there.

Manchester Airport to Hampton Falls, NH at 1AM.

Other than my trips to the office, this was the first real test for the Nuvi. Worked like a charm through the country roads of NH. Just thinking about what it would have been like trying to use a "paper" map in a dimly lit car makes me laugh.

Marshfield, MA to Chatham, MA (Cape Cod)

Worked great but had some difficulty with the round-abouts that were removed recently.

Boston, MA
No problems - surprisingly (I had tried Tom Tom 910 last year and it was a disaster).

Ogunquit, ME

No problems

Overall - Very satisfied with Nuvi350. For anyone still deciding on buying a GPS, the spoken "street names" is a must.

I just returned from my trip and discovered that even though I had the new nt 2008 map update, some of the fuel locations were very old. I was searching for a Texaco gas station and used my 2720's direction to find the closest one and when I arrived, it was no longer a Texaco. Then I preceded to the next closest Texaco listed and it was not a Texaco either. So I preceded to the third listed one and it also was no longer a Texaco. I gave up on Texaco and went for a PB gas station....when I arrived there..guess what....it was no longer a PB station and the owner said that it had been 4 years since it was a PB station. Guess they don't update the poi's when they do the new maps.

I have noticed that they add new ones faster then deleting old ones. I have found the same thing with gas stations.

we visited some relatives & friends to Ewing NJ using my nuvi 660, it was my 1st time to use it in a long trip, personally this gps stuff gave me a bit of confidence in driving knowing that it help much getting to where i want to go. what i have noticed on this trip was when driving I-95S to US RT 1, half way thru it the GPS suddenly recalculated, but after its recalculation its still giving the same route, my wife & i were a bit confused with it that i jokingly told her that "JACK" the navigator was asleep during the trip that when he woke up he thought that we are in the wrong direction so he recalculated...Did this happen to anyone here?

Secondly, i made three trips to same location but everytime i go home the GPS directs me to different route each time i go home, i havent tried going home taking the same route on my previous travel... im just wondering if anyone has experienced this... Does the GPS automatically reroute you if it can sense a traffic on the previous route it took you?
This afternoon im going back to that same place & i will try to observe if what route it wiil take from the previous or it will give me another route...

So long everyone, Have a sfe trip to one & all...

Yesterday afternoon, I drove to Savannah, and because I was heading to an address I've never been before, I plugged it into the GPS. Halfway there, the GPS lady told me to go a different way than I would normally use (the address was in the northern part of the city, along the river). At the last minute, I decided "what the heck", and made the turn she was suggesting. Lo and behold, she headed me west, put me onto I95 South, and told me to exit within a few miles of my destination, which she took me to in fine fashion. I don't know if it was any quicker, but she sure avoided a whole bunch of local rush hour traffic.

I love my Nuvi 350!

Unlike most folks here, I have a handheld unit. I initially purchased my Garmin GPSMAP 76CS (later upgraded to a 76CSx) for geocaching but I wanted a unit that would also handle maps and autorouting. No voice prompts but I'm pretty happy without them.

My wife and I recently visited our daughter in Montana (we live in California) and used the Garmin for our routing. I set up a trip in MapSource and sent the route to my unit. Not only did it perform flawlessly as far as routing and alerts, we also used it for finding branches of our bank, restaurants, hotels, etc. We drove from California, through Nevada, into Montana. Then we went up to Glacier National Park and down into Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and back home.

In addition to the things listed above, I had also done queries of geocaches along the way and then filtered the results to list only the ones that were within .25 miles of the actual roads we would use on our route. This gave us a number of places to choose from for recreational stops. (I really need to get out of the vehicle on a regular basis due to back issues.) Not only did we find physical geocaches but we saw some places in Glacier National Park and other areas that we would have missed if not for having them as Virtual geocaches.

I love this thing.

"How often does Garmin update their poi's"

When I was on their site last night, downloading a bugged version 4.3 update, I noticed somewhere on their site that they had discontined POI's.

Today's Interesting Garmin Trip:
Today went to the Manchester, NH airport. Decided to venture off on our way home. Garminlisted Herbal Teapot Farm under "food" (about 15 miles NE from where we were), it took us on a backroad to an abandoned old church building that the locals said was never a tea shop. My husband was not happy.

We went to Baltimore,Maryland from NY. The C330 came pretty Handy. My wife saw some people on the the road still using mapquest.You can tell with the white 8x11 paper they're holding.hehehe

On a recent trip we decided to venture off the highway and take the back roads towards home. We stopped at an amazing farm stand, according to their sign "voted the best", and I could see why.

They grew their own peaches, pears, apples, melons and tons of veggies. It was what they didn't grow that I was interested in. For months I've been searching for fresh figs that weren't on the verge of spoiling and they had them!

We asked to see a phone book. My husband wanted to check out a motorcycle shop - M.O.M. - Motorcycles of Manchester. We typed the address into the Garmin and off we went. We bought him a safety motorcycle jacket and better helmet than he had.

Very glad we decided to take the road less traveled!

Used my rx5915 for a trip to and from Charleston SC from Dayton OH with a side trip to Savannah GA. I have driven to Charleston many times but this trip using the Tom Tom system was fun. It tracked the route very well except for a section on US 35 that has been relocated from the old route.

It was very useful to get to our hotel in Savannah as I have never been there before even if a new bridge did not show on the map.

Cheers

We used the Garmin to get us to a cute diner in New Hampshire.

I read Bobktz post that he created a POI of diners, but I can't seem to find it on the POI listings. I checked through restaurants and also attractions.

If anyone knows where exactly it is, I'd love to know.

Thanks

We drove to Shreveport, LA for the Labor Day weekend. I knew they were planning on starting construction on I-20 any day now, so we decided to explore the side roads. Went all the way to on smaller highways using our Garmin for guidance. Saw a lot of interesting sites that you don't get to see from the interstate.

I used my GPS in San Francisco. Thank goodness I was the passanger because I don't think I could follow directions and the hilly roads and traffic all at the same time! My brother ignored everything I said until 'Jack' said it. =P

Though I am away for long stretches at a time so I do not think this will help my windmill too much, I did want to share my Gatlinburg trip.

Anyone that has ever gone to Gatlinburg should know that everything is on a hill, around a hill, or part of the hill. If you are like me and a flatlander (i.e., I am from Florida) then every hill is an adventure in white-knuckle driving. This was no exception.

We rented a cottage in Gatlinburg that was of course, part of the mountain. The rental place was on the otherside of the mountain. Both would of been challenging, if not impossible, for me to find if it had not been for my Garmin 660. Her gentle, calming voice guided me through a maze of winding roads (some even one-lane...not one-way) right to the rental place. There we picked up our keys and the address to our cottage.

The rental agent started the conversation with, "Since you wanted a secluded place, this is going to be a bit challenging to explain how to get there." At that point, I asked her to hold on a second and I attempted to plug the address into my Garmin. BINGO! Route calculated.

I thanked the rental agent for the keys, told her we did not need directions, and followed the verbal directions of sweet Garmin to our "HANGING OFF THE CLIFF" get-away.

We explored many places and had a great time with the sense of freedom the Garmin gave us. Not only could it lead us to our places of interest but it could always get us back. That meant alot since I was too busy trying to keep us alive on those tiny, winding, death traps they call roads, and thus did not have the time to navigate on my own.

Went to DC and then to Paw Paw (Berkley Springs) the unit seemed to work just fine on some of the C/R (Country roads)

Last venture with Jack was to an Irish Pub in N.H., he said:

"Arriving at address ___ on left." Nope...it was on the right, but we parked and found it anyway.

Your vacation sounds beautiful. I don't think I'd mind the driving. Although it they had cliffs on either side, I might get a bit jittery.

My city:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitchburg,_Massachusetts

Fitchburg is located at 42°34′43″N, 71°48′12″W (42.578689, -71.803383)GR1.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 72.7 km² (28.1 mi²). 71.9 km² (27.8 mi²) of it is land and 0.8 km² (0.3 mi²) of it (1.07%) is water. The city is drained by the Nashua River. Fitchburg is rumored to be the second hilliest city in the United States following San Francisco.

We just got back from a trip from Tennessee to S.E. Florida. We used the Publix supermarket, Steak and Shake and I-95 speed trap poi files from here. They were a great help.

I used my newly purchased Nuvi 660 to make a 370 mile trip to attend a wedding in a suburb of Buffalo.

Since I had some free time and like to run in parks, I had the Nuvi show me nearby parks(before I left home I used POI downloader to download all parks in the Northeast), and then on different days I chose two different parks, which the Nuvi guided me to with complete accuracy.

There was a family dinner on Saturday night, and after we left the restaurant I somehow missed our turn back to the hotel even though my Nuvi was on. It was late at night with no gas stations around, and I had my wife and inlaws in the car. Everyone was tired and wanted to get back to the hotel. We followed the Nuvi's directions down dimly lit suburban streets. I crossed my fingers praying that this was going to work out or else I was going to be in deep trouble. Just as my wife asked if I knew what I was doing(having missed the original turn onto the highway), right on cue the entrance to the highway appeared and I breathed a sigh of relief. My wife then became a true believer.

On the trip home I was thinking of modifying the route the Nuvi wanted, but my wife would not hear of it. I laughed when the voice on the Nuvi announced our next turn and my wife said "From now on, listen to her."

2 weeks ago, took my C330 to Milwaukee, then on to Penna. I've had it for 2 years, and have never seen it get so screwed up as it did in downtown Milwaukee. Granted there is a lot of construction, (entrance ramps closed, etc.), but there were not a lot of tall buildings, at least where I was. It had me driving around in circles. Once we left Milwaukee, on the trip to Pa., my Custom POI files sure came in handy. Interstate Rest Areas for Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio.
We went on some back roads around State College at night, and raining, and it took us right to where we wanted to go. At first, my wife was a skeptic, but after it found her a couple of Wal-Marts, she became a believer. Need to update my map, though, to 2008.

Just got back from a trip to Maui, Hawaii, Oahu and Lanie.

Very interesting pronunciations of the Hawaiian street names! I found that the best was the male US English voice. Many names were completely botched and had to look at the screen to see the spelling.

The Nuvi did take us on a couple of back roads that ended up actually being faster and were much more interesting than the main roads.

I didn't have a car charger or mount and learned my lesson. I now have bean bag mount and spare 12VDC car charger.

All in all the Nuvi made the trip much easier. Wouldn't leave home without it from now on.

Stan

I use my c340 EVERY day at work (delivery truck driver.) It probably saves me a good hour every day compared to using a paper map with a human operator. I can't stress enough - hide your GPSr! Had mine stolen once, and it was traumatic.

i cant really tell if there's a difference with WAAS enabled or not

I have just returned to the Middle East after a hectic 4 weeks in South Africa introducing my 2 year old lad to all the family he had yet to meet.

My Nuvi 670 was spot on for all areas of Johannesburg and did well in Cape Town (except for the Southern Suburbs for which it somehow did not have all the maps and in some sections it had the maps mis-aligned).
(See http://www.poi-factory.com/node/5866)

However it worked like charm 90% of the time.
The only gripe I really have is that I found the battery life useless at best (I didn't pack the whole car kit caboodle).

My wife was really impressed with 'Carmin' to the point of wanting her always to be on - a nice change from her being mildly amused with my tech hobby.

I even got to take a screenshot of max speed 798 km/h (495 mph)when flying down to Cape Town!

Safe travels to those heading off.

On a recent trip through Oklahoma and Texas, when I was in northern Oklahoma, my traffic receiver gave me the list of traffic occurences for Dallas, Texas...some 300 miles away...how can that be? lol.. AND it aso said....."traffic alert" in 24,385 miles...wow, that's some receiver.

I bought a Garmin C530 a few weeks ago as a nice toy. Last week I went to the Jacksonville (FL) area for some house hunting.
My toy became the most useful tool. Even though I did not know the area, my C530 took me wherever I wanted to go, i.e. specific addresses, shopping centers, grocery stores, hospitals, etc.
Many new communities where not on my C530 map but with the information on the builders' web sites, I was able to use the iantersection function and had no problem to find those new communities.
All in all, a great tool.

PS. I am new to GPSs and POI Factory. It's a great site and I thank all those who help to make it the best site to learn everything about GPS.

I am currently in Hawaii and brought my Nuvi 360 with me. Kind of fun powering it up on the plane to see how fast we were going, top speed of 550 mph!

Currently I am on Oahu on business (rough but someone has to do it) and will be renting a car later today to do a little sight seeing. Tomorrow I am off to the Kona coast of the the big Island Hawaii to relax, do some driving around and enjoy a cigar or two. My plans are a tour of the observatory sites on Mauna Kea at 9000' and if I can handle it the 14,000' site on Thursday. Maybe later I would like to visit the volcanos for a look. When I get back I will write a brief recount of those visits. I'm excited to go, this is my fourth Hawaiian trip however my first to the island of Hawaii.

Aloha to all!

The first real test of my new Nuvi is coming up when we travel from Halifax, NS to Toronto, ON and then Gettysburg, PA. Looking for golf and scenic routes. Red Light cameras should help through Toronto and Montreal as sould the golf POI files...thanks everyone!.

My wife hates map-reading so she is delighted I got a new toy!

Downloaded a couple of audio books, connected the bluetooth for the phone, and hooked up the FM receiver.

Anything else I should do or plan before I go out on the trip? (Yes Virginia, I do have a passport!)

The reason for purchasing a Zumo 550 in July was to help on a trip to my motorcycle owner’s group national rally in Canaan Valley WV. Never having been there before, it worked great. The organizers of the rally made available sample route maps to d/l into the gps for use after we got there. The Zumo worked with everything that I threw at it and brought me home through unfamiliar territory with ease. I'm hooked.

P.S. Great site!

Took my Nuvi 360 with us to the Grands and Yellowstone. Came in handy finding our motels thru-out our 5 day trip. Especially our last night in Pray, Mt. at the Chico Hot Springs Resort. Dont think I would of found this resort at night. Way out there in gods country. Did find some problems with the unit on our last day leaving Yellowstone (north side) getting to Jackson Hole airport by a certain time to catch our flight. The gps read 117 miles and would get us to the airport in around 2 hours or so. I knew we were'nt going to get back to the airport in 2 hours. Even if we did not stop at the sites along the way out of the park it would take us 3+ hours to the airport. We ended up stopping at a half dozen spots (including a herd of buffaloes-around 200!). One bad ass one that would move out of the road for 5 minutes. Still the gps was right on! I would'nt leave home without it.

Bought my nuvi 680 online and paid to have it overnighted. Had a wedding in Philly that upcoming weekend (I live in Pittsburgh), had a Rush show in Cleveland the following Thurs night, had a Rush show in Columbus that Sunday... Thing's been working great!

My problem is constantly checking my 'max speed for trip' indicator and going 'hmm.. only 88? let me try again...' Then again, I did get a ticket for 82 on the way back from Columbus. I think I've got it to about 93 for the max, although I reset it every trip. The other bad thing is 'hmm arrive 7:34... if I push it a little faster, can I get it down to 7:33....'

The only bad thing about a GPS... I always had a good sense of direction. When you rely on Australian Karen just telling you where to go, sometimes you lose that greater sense of where you are. I've had to make a point of trying to zoom out on the GPS to see enough of a big picture to keep my biological sense of direction

My last big trip was to CT from Boston to a family birthday party. The first time I went to my nephew's house (they live in the very rural sticks) I got lost, lost, lost, driving on their unmarked streets. So I decided to get a GPS. My sister & brother-in-law have the streetpilot c330, and they love their "Carlotta". They kept raving about it and have used it on many of their road trips.

I purchased the streetpilot c340, because I wanted to hear the street names vs generic turn commands.

"Aussie Ken" performed very well. I did lose the signal a couple of times because there was just so many trees and leaf foliage, but no big deal.

I experimented by taking a wrong turn on a dirt road on the way home, and "Ken" navigated through the rural roads just fine.

Now I use it for city driving, and am diligently adding school speed zones because I drive past so many schools on the commute. I'm also compiling a list of speed traps for my own custom POI collection- "Ken" is my own personal traffic cop.

Recently flew in and spent a week in the Denver, CO, area. It worked flawlessly on a quick day trip to Colorado Springs. But I had it hiccup one time in Denver on the way to pick up Chinese takeout for dinner. I'd entered an intersection destination and it mapped out the route, but about a mile short of there it told me that I'd arrived at "003." Luckily I simply had to follow the map onscreen to get the last mile to get dinner.

Last time I used my nuvi 370 was for a local trip into Dallas to find a home. I was routed on major highways, but I forgot about a Cowboys game. Encountered much traffic and decided to go past my turn. Reroute work perfectly. But as I neared my destination, my 370 kept calling out the wrong street name for the exit. Instead of McArthur, it was calling Hwy 183, the road I was on. After I missed my exit, and made a u-turn, it corrected itself and was o.k. from then on. Very unusual. Then as I left the home, I entered "Go Home" and I was rerouted back the way I came(which was the shortest distance), which I knew was full of traffic. So instead of turning east, I went west. The 370 kept rerouting back to the original route. Even after I turned onto a major highway and drove several miles, the reroute was still back to the original path. Only after I stop the current route and the did "go home" again, did it pick a different route. Now that I think of it, I probably should have done "detour". This was the first time that it gave me this strange behavior, but I still love my nuvi. We are planning a trip to Italy and I have it loaded with lots (over 150) points of interest. Looking forward to see how it performs in driving and pedestrian modes.

Joe

I took my c340 to DC in July. Everything worked like a charm. Didn't get lost at all. Took me straight to my hotel near DuPont Circle. Only problem was my greediness in loading up the POI's, redlight camera, speed alerts.... My c340 was faithful in alerting me non-stop. I finally had to turn it off and use the built-in GPS in my Acura. Of course, my wife laughed at me. Words of wisdom: be selective with POI's.

OK OK... you guys can laugh me too.

Bought my nuvi 660 in May, and took it with us to SoCal, where it went head-to-head with the nav system in my new Honda CR-V. For the most part, they stayed pretty close to each other. SOmetimes the routes were a bit off, and the traffic warnings of the nuvi saved us a couple of times.

Most annoying thing was when the nuvi would try to route us off of the freeway, onto an off-ramp, only to put us back on the on-ramp just across the street.

B_P

I get all the addresses i want to go to on the recent found or favorites and hit the road.

We are currently in Moab, Utah and today I took a trip around the area. Covered Sandflats Road then went on UT 128, and took a short rip on Kane Creek Road. Had a great time riding and even picked up some geocaches along the way.

Not in any danger of losing the windmill here, but we have to keep this thread active, just in case...

We took the Garmin 350 to Phoenix (589 mph... on the way back) where we stayed at the Scottsdale Plaza Resort. Our first morning I plugged in "Starbucks" and set off for the closest one. No sooner had I turned onto Scottsdale Road, when the GPS lady was telling me to make a "U" turn. I hadn't driven more than 100 feet! Seems in Phoenix, there's a Starbucks in every plaza on every corner... Way to go Phoenix!

Great trip, used my gps all way, i have a nuvi 660 . help us find restaurants, hotels, gas stations, and i love the estimated arrival time feature.

Just used my garmin c 340 from VA to Florida and it worked great.I admit that I had traveled the same route for years but using it to find resturants and lodging made it worth the money.Plan to make a cross country trip next year and hope to use it at its full intent.Have travel to all the US states except 2 and done it the old fashion way with hand maps.I am sure the GPS would have made a big differnce back then.Still many more trips in the planning and the GPS unit will be with me.