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

Used my new 760 to navigate my way around the Columbus area.

I have a Nuvi 200w that we purchased and use for motorcycle riding,taking back country roads without getting too lost were there is no gas station is nice.
We live in Port Neches,Tx on the Texas upper Gulf Coast and had to evacuate for Hurricane IKE. Traffic with several millions moving to safe grounds it was very useful. We navigated off the main highways taking rural roads all the way to Austin TX. It took us about 2-1/2 hours longer than a normal drive, And arrived 12 hours before some of our freinds that had let before we did. Given the millions traveling thats unbeleivable. My parents went to my sister's camp in the lakes area for the evacuation when they realized in was the direct path of hurricane IKE they had to move for safety.
My parents called me said they were driving and stopping at every hotel, motel,lodge and every place was booked up so they were going to keep driving north until they found something. I said let me see if I can use this new gps to find you a place. Sitting by a window in my Hotel in Austin,Tx with my Nuvi in hand, I searched for lodging on the nuvi called about 30 hotels finally found my family a place to stay about 170 miles away. Several phones calls for directons and few hours later we had navigated them from point to point to the hotel, all from my room in Austin with the Nuvi 200w. What more can I say.... The nuvi was invaluable in this instance.

Made the trip back home from South Carolina to spend Christmas with the family in Maryland.

Currently on my trip! Left Lexington, KY on Monday morning and ended up in Memphis, TN. Tomorrow, headed to New Orleans!

Used my new Magellan RoadMate 1412 to get me from NJ to Birmingham, AL. All in all, it was awesome! Love how it tells you when you're going to get there (motivation to hustle when you stop for gas or food), how many miles remain, and recalculates the route if you must go off-route.

My only concern was that it thought I was on a different highway in Tennessee. It had me get off the highway and proceed back on. Considering I didn't even bother printing out directions and my only other backup was an atlas, it was great. I'm heading off to Florida after I'm through here. I'm sure it will do just as well.

I can't help but wonder if this model works on airplanes.

Drove with two co-workers for some training in St Louis. They had their map quest printout and the GPS was ignored.

They took me down some dead end road, didn't know how we got there, and were not sure how to get back to where we were last on the map.

From that point on we followed the GPS which took us over the bridge and right to the door of our hotel. They returned from the trip with interest in getting their own GPS.

Spent the last two weeks in Jacksonvile and Mayport Navsta with my daughter and grand kids. Thanks to the POI Factory. By providing the best Hot Dog and Ice Cream places, I'm now "The World's Greatest Grandpa!" Even though I lost my windmill, it was well worth it.

Uneventful trip Christmas Eve. Had a traffic report of a 1 minute delay at the Ft. McHenry tunnel on the return trip, but did not actually encounter it. Weather (drizzle) was the biggest issue requiring frequent windshield cleaning, but that was about it. Hope everyone has safe travels!

Nuvi got us to Ft Jackson Commissary in great shape.

It did not alert us that it was closed yesterday however.

It routed us through some very rural country for our return. We saw several deer. All in all a very enjoyable trip.

I love my Nuvi!

I used my Nuvi to find a nice restaurant after catching a play in Hollywood. We were able to relax for a nice dinner before fighting outbound L.A. traffic home on Christmas Eve.

Used it to get to relatives house out in the country. Also came in handy visiting various other friends in the area over the last few days.

Nothing fancy, just a short from LA to San Deigo.

used my new 765T to navigate around town to run some errands and it took me a little bit to figure out the way to best travel to several destinations, but it works fine. The advertisements aren't as bad as I expected.

On a recent cruise out of LA, we were dumped back on land around 8AM (as most cruises do to get you off so that they can prepare for the next load) with plenty of time to wait until our 3PM flight home from LAX.

So I came up with the brilliant idea to check my poi-factory POI file, "offbeat tourist attractions" file to find not one, but two places I'd always wanted to see, and now had the time to do them both!

One was the giant Randy's Doughnut sign and the other was the oldest continuously operating McDonald's in the world! My Garmin 200W navigated us flawlessly to both and with just the right amount of time to get to the airport comfortably.

BTW, if you like offbeat places, try www.roadsideamerica.com. It's my 2nd fav site (after poi-factory of course).

Was on a trip to the familys house in Tennessee last week when during the ice storm my wife slipped and broke her ankle. I had my Garmin which directed me to the nearest hospital. I have had my Garmin 360 for a couple years now but I am still amazed by it.

Thanks for the tip to this site. It has some very interesting locations, I look forward to visiting some soon.

Steven

Dallas, Tx.

Omaha to Riverside, CA

I use a Garmin nuvi 760.

My last trip was to a family residence in Calvert County, Maryland. Other than the final destination, the directions were spot on. I am pretty impressed with the unit. This was its maiden voyage, and it did well.

I wish that certain more-rural-but-still-suburban areas in Maryland were better mapped. I have found a few examples of this but I cannot remember them right now. I will check my logs and see if I can't recall the location.

LEFT atlanta GA and arrived at Charlottesville VA and directions were right on. sTREET pILOT C550

directions were good. however i am using the traffic receiver (30-day free trial) and i'm not that impressed with it. i have better results getting traffic updates using my cell phone's data plan.

Well, considering there is only one exit you have to take, just south of Greensboro, on that whole trip, that's pretty good.

From one who lives near that route.

My friend Jack came back from the Garmin hospital-- they checked him over and decided he needed a heart transplant. He is like new now with new maps. He is resting, but will soon take a trip to Colorado. Hope the weather is not to bad. He does not like the snow and cold. Happy New Year!

This weekend I left the Dairy State for the Flatlands to visit several Civil War-related sites in Chicago. One stop was for the Confederate Mound at Oakwood Cemetery, the largest mass grave in the Western Hemisphere (the remains of 6,000 POWs from the Camp Douglas prison camp).

With the GPSr, my twelve stop itinerary went supersmooth: Low anxiety, efficient and safe traveling.

GregPaul

DW and I traveled from Newton, AL to Williamsburg, VA for the Thanksgiving holiday. On the way, we took a side trip to Bethlehem to see the new born (seriously - it was Son's step-daughter and newborn baby girl in Bethlehem, GA.) Had no problems with the GPS.

Curt Hinson

I finally got an opportunity to use my GO 930 in Europe, specifically in Italy. While I know enought Italian to be able to order the food I want at a restaraunt and ask simple directions, the GO 930 was a big help. I used to chose the simplest directions to get somewhere (i.e., stick to the major roads) which could add as much as a half hour of travel or more depending upon traffic. This time, I plugged my destination into my GO 930 and checked the directions against Google Earth. The directions made sense and were more direct than the path I would have chosen so I decided to follow them. The GO 930 took me via several small roads (although they were labeled "highways") through some very scenic country and avoided most of the big traffic chockpoints. Although, it being a beautiful Sunday, the biggest traffic was caused by the numerous bicycle groups enjoying the weather.

All in all, I was very pleased with the routing. This trip vindicated for me my choice of getting the GO 930 (because it included a Eurpoean map). I also like Garmin, and have used one for many years, but the price of the GO 930 with the Eurpoean map included sealed the deal for me.

DW and I traveled from Newton, AL to Denton, TX (Destiny/Dallas RV Resorts) over the last two weeks. Returned yesterday (30 December 2008) after spending Christmas week with Daughter in Plano, TX. Had a few local routes that I wasn't sure of and lost Jack when we started back home. Tried everything to get him back, but the voice thingy would just blank out for a tenth of a second and present the voice thingy again. At the first rest stop, I completely disconnected and turned off the GPS. Turned it back on and BAM, there he was. Somewhere along these procedures, I evidently reset the 750 to it's defaults and didn't check all of them. At Greenville, AL on the return trip, it routed me through town and I came up on a 10' 0" railroad overpass. I was able to turn around at a Shell station and get back on my route on the other side. Kinda funny, actually, since I am interested in the LOW CLEARANCES POI file, but did not load it.

Curt Hinson

How big is your RV?

We've been looking at getting a small one to travel from Mass. to AZ, TX, & CA with our two small dogs.

Sounds like you had a good two weeks.

Cheryl

Princeton the nuvi took us on a scenic route, but when returning home took the highway. Passed a WaWa gas station 1.43 filled up on the return 1.38.

Nuvi360

I had a funeral to attend in Harrisonburg, VA and was not sure of the location of the chapel so I plugged the address into my Garmin and off I went. It took me right to the front door.

from NC to FL and back home again. My Nuvi served me well. But, I have to say it was a tad disappointing when I got to Key West. I didn't use it other than to look for some public parking lots, so that I could walk around all day, with a paper map in hand; the town is small enough to do so. The nearest parking lot it showed was 60 miles away! I'm running on a 2008 map update, but I think that something was dreadfully outdated nonetheless.

Anyone else find that GPS' are lacking when it comes to the Keys? (I didn't use it much down there, given that there's really only one major road for the entire length of the chain, and everything runs off the mile markers).

GC

A mediteranean cruise with my Nuvi 760. Had europe maps and monte carlo europe loaded. The GPS was great on the boat and in ped mode throughout Europe. Don't leave home without it

First, I would like to say that I did a "quote" and a submit to CherylMASS on this earlier, but it obviously went into LA-LA Land. Can anybody explain?

Anyway, to answer your question Cheryl, I have a Cedar Creek 37RDQS 5th wheel that is over 12' high with the front Air Conditioner. The 37 indicates 37' in length, but it is more like 38. I pull it with a 2008 GMC Sierra SLT Crew Cab, long bed dually with the Duromax/Allison engine/trans combo. Life is good.

A small camper works for many people. What you get will depend on the creature conforts, tow vehicle and how much junk you want to carry along. The most important item I have found anymore that must be included is a good GPS System, or two - maybe even three.

Curt Hinson

That must have been the one in Marathon

The 2009 maps have 5 Key West parking lots.

I hadn't bothered too, because there hasn't been that many problems with the 2008 version, while doing the bulk of travels around my home state, other than occasionally driving thru now paved over cotton fields according to my Nuvi. But, this experience says that being informed to park in yes, Marathon, and not Key West is a major flaw in my logic.

When does the 2010 map update come out?

GC

If I recall correctly, new maps are released around April or so.

Left Christmas afternoon, to go to Douglasville, Ga. Approx. 1400 miles round trip. GPS worked perfectly

Check this and see if your places you want are on here and that should tell you if you want to update when the new maps come out, Personaly i wouldnt update just yet, waiting a couple of months would be worth it, those updates are expensive,

http://tinyurl.com/5prtok

...that was helpful. I think I'm going to wait till the 2010 update comes out.
I don't have any more major jaunts planned at least for a few months.

GC

somewhere in berkeley, CA

Not to toot my own horn, I took my tour I created of Richmond, VA's most tacky lights. There were about 45 different homes on the tour and folks are getting mighty creative around here! Sounds synchronized to lights flashing, a dude with all Grinch blow-ups and a Grinch handing out candy. The tour took about 5 hours to finish but it was awesome.

Wow, that is an amazing story!

Indianapolis, used it from airport to the Holiday Inn.

Nuvi360

I have local school zones and other safety zones in Custom Poi's to help me remember not to speed. I also use the blue tooth for hands-free phone calls. I make and annual trip to Vero Beach Florida from Denver Colorado and rely on the Nuvi 780 to find food and fuel(prices)and keep track of progress. I also have Fish-finder/GPS on my kayak. I use it to find favorite fishing spots and to feel free to explore waterways knowing I will get back to safe harbor. I also have a SPOT (GPS) to send (I'm OK) messages to the wife when I go on solo paddles and cycle tours (I can send for help too). Lastly I use a Forerunner 301 GPS when cycling and kayaking to keep track of heart-rate and calories consumed etc. I like to know where I am, where I was and how to get where I am going. Editing voice files and creating custom Poi's make these devices much more useful tools. There are many more exciting new possibilities for GPS as the technology matures.

I hate it when I have to cross the river to the west side. Lots of new streets, but this Garmin 200 did its job.

Used my new 765T to travel to Cleveland - found that traffic wasn't available everywhere along the route, but seemed helpful where it was available.

Got off the LIE redlight alert came on, they installed a camera since my last visit, POI acquired from here comes in handy.

Nuvi360

Had I known that I could have gotten a windmill I would have been more active. Guess it's not too late.

My wife and I just got back from a trip to Kentucky and Tennessee. We drove our car this time so we brought the GPS with us, of course. We did not bring any of those paper map things with us and we were able to find all of the locations that we desired, including my sisters very remote house in Kentucky.

I am a collector of waypoints and I did collect some waypoints from some fantastic stops that we made along the way. In and of themselves they were not necessarily spectacular but the beautiful snow covered trees and a walk in the woods with my wife of 27 years. I will want to go back there for sure!

My wife and I have a little notebook we keep in the car for when we run into a great spot of any type - it goes in the log and when we are out and about in the area again, we have an address or other location to return to. We have been doing this for years.

It warmed up a few weeks ago, and we used the US Covered Bridges POI file to drive to a few of the local covered bridges. It made a nice Sunday drive.