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

Last week I been to California for the first time with my Nuvi 680. While in the plane I turned my Nuvi on and it was interesting to see the places we flew above. I made sure to take screen shots of my nuvi map to archive my trip and plot the route later on.

Once arrived in San Francisco Airport (CA), I rented a vehicle, sooner my nuvi was in its place on the windshield. The first thing I did, is to store my current location as a favorite to make sure that I will be able to return the car back to the dealer. Then, it was the time for the Nuvi to take control of the trip. I was totally dependent on it as I did not have paper maps, just the nuvi. I input the hotel address (located in San Rafael) and followed my nuvi instructions. It was a very smooth trip with no problems except the heavy traffic in the city. While driving I noticed that people were driving well above the speed limit on the high way. While the speed limit was 65 mi, I found people driving 70-80 mi which I did not use to do nor understand. I wonder, how are those people managing escape the speed ticket? The trip to the hotel took around 45 mins. without issues.

I downloaded a couple of files from POI-factory for places to visit during my stay but I did not have the time to use most of them but what I can say in that regard is that the Wal-mart file needs tunning since I drove to store listed in the poi file, but never found it. The safety camera files were working great associated with the appropriate sound warnings.

While driving around I had the feeling that I will never be lost as long as my nuvi in front of me and powered on. Wow! that was great.

At the end of my visit, on the way back to the SFO airport, the msn detoured me a couple of times to avoid heavy traffic and the trip took almost 50 mins from San Rafael to San Francisco in the morning.

By the way, I do not think paper maps can provide much help for a newcomer to navigate thorough a large city like this. I think the streets/roads are complex for me to handle with a paper map if I ever had it.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this with everyone. This trip would never be that easy without my Nuvi.

One of the things I do for fun is work elections. I work as a Field Inspector in Santa Clara County, responsible for between eight and a dozen precincts (polling places). I spend election day, from six in the morning until around ten at night, driving from one precinct to another, checking in, helping with problems, delivering supplies, observing, that kind of thing.

Having key locations programmed into the GPS -- my precincts, the location of the return center, locations of the supply centers set up in the field -- really helps. And it's an even bigger help if I get a call to go to a precinct I've never visited before!

In California, the bulk of the work of actually running elections is done by volunteers. County officials manage supplies, printing ballots, counting and reporting, getting supplies and equipment distributed and collected, but the people actually manning the polling places? They're volunteers.

If you're a registered voter in your county, you can count, and you know the alphabet, your local Registrar of Voters needs you! It makes for a very long day, but it's rewarding -- you get trained, and you even get paid!

If you haven't done it before, why not give it a try? Too late for the June election in California, but not too late for the November fun.

Just got back from a weekend dtrip nothing went well cold wet and windy all weekend, but the 660 performed great even found a ghost town that shown your traveling on no road but still found the town we were looking for. Als the arival time was right on. Hoow everyone had a great memorial weekend..

I borrowed a Nuvi for a trip to Portland and the Olympic Peninsula. What a joy to travel in new areas and not have to deal with maps, a navigationally challenged friend, and the resultant stress! Not only did it guide us to where we wanted to go, it also helped in unanticipated ways. Like finding the nearest place for first-aid supplies after a minor fall.

First thing I did when we returned was to buy a Nuvi for myself. Now I plan to explore more of the CT State Parks and will try to make a POI of these in the coming weeks.

Recently traveled from Massachusetts to Florida by plane and used the GPS (Nuvi 360) all the way down. Southwest allows them and didn't have any problems using it. It was fun seeing the plane speed and altitude as we moved along. My return trip was by car, Florida to Mass. Device worked great though it was a pretty straight route home.

I took mine to the grocery store for it's first trip. Mainly because I wanted to see if the red light camera alert worked.

To school and work.

Took a 650 from Victoria to Banff to Calgary to Edmonton to Jasper and back to Victoria. And ended up returning the unit, not because of performance but because of a few bugs it had. As far as routing goes, it really saved our skins time and time again. It was awesome in Calgary but not as great in Edmonton. All and all it did quite well.

Now i'm the proud owner of a 760. Can't wait to take it on my next trip as soon as the gas prices come down.

Put the eTrex Vista hcx on the handle bar mount and went out for a ride...

Might have a long wait Oh wait, you didn't say come down how much.

I was looking for an address in Missisauga but as it turns out it is listed as an address in Meadowvale Ontario. Thanks to Google, I was still able to map it out by entering the right town info.

LA to Carpinteria State Beach in Santa Barbara County. Couldn't get away until after 4 on Friday and thought I would be stuck in heavy traffic on the 101. The only benefit of high gas prices...no Memorial Day traffic!

Use my 780 in DC and everywhere else we go, It doesn't miss anything so far, MSN is sketchy at best

MEM to hotel in Southaven MS.
Glad I had it with me as it rained so hard last night that you couldn't see the exit sign on the "double nickel".

Talk about heavy rain! I drove to Shreveport, LA on Monday to do some gambling. The rain was so heavy, I could barely see the car in front of me. When I looked at my Garmin 660, it was clear as could be. I was tempted to just follow the map on the Garmin!

Just finished 17 day driving trip from FL>VA(NW)>NH>NY(upstate)>VA(SW)>FL . Drove 3450 miles - averaged 26.8 mpg (overall) in the 2008 Taurus but I was getting 30-31 mpg on the highways South of VA (fairly flat). Started trip 5/8 and ended 5/25. Lowest gas price I paid was in SC at $3.429/gal and highest was $4.079/gal in Upstate NY.
You would have never guessed gas prices were a problem with the big SUVs etc going by me like I was standing still - I drive the speed limit.
Speed determined by my C340 !
All in all a good trip except for weather - had rain 8 of the 17 days and temps were typically below 60 which is a tad cool for us FL wimps !
Found 2 Rest areas missing and 5 new Turnouts !
Rest Area Alerts were right on !

I recently had to visit downtown Birmingham, Alabama. For the first time since I've owned the Nuvi, I had trouble acquiring a satellite. I finally got one, but it took nearly 8 minutes and I didn't pick it up until I hit a large intersection with 2 divided 4 laned streets. I guess the buildings prevented the signal from coming through.

Just bought the Nuvi 350. Nice upgrade from the SP c330.

Not a bad trip. The GPS worked great and going direct saved a lot of time and cut down on the "Recalculating" chatter. The trip took just under 4 hours and I got a new top speed of 601MPH!! I was at FL330 and doing .81 Mach at the time. A 100 MPH tail wind helped also...LOL! Unfortunately, the battery in my Garmin nuvi 660 won't last the whole trip without a "Low Battery" warning. Go figure.

Memorial Day weekend trip to Atlanta. Stayed on the North side (Perimeter) but visited stuff downtown. GPS made it the easiest trip I've ever made to Atlanta. Now, the traffic, that's another story altogether.

I just got back from a weeks trip into Michigan and I could not be more pleased with my Nuvi.It found nearly every POI that I typed in with the one notable exception. I tried to find Bass Pro Shops by typing in the name, but it could not find it, so I tried Outdoor World, still no luck. I finally got the location by typing "Rainforest Cafe" (it was in the same mall) I could have downloaded the Bass Pro Shops POI file from this site before I set out but I figured that it would be easy enough for Nuvi to find the only one in Michigan.
Another quirk was it's insistance that I stay on the collector lanes and not the express ones whilst travelling through Toronto. I put it down to that being the fractionally shorter route. Luckily they were not busy and it finally sent me back onto the express lanes just in time to leave Toronto.On the return trip it sent me down the express lanes.
Apart from those two instances it behaved perfectly, getting me from point A to point B effortlessly. It really impressed the relatives and more importantly, my wife.

My wife and Daughters used the Nuvi 750 to go to Charleston, SC. It was very helpful.

Just got a Garmin 200W and am making short trips to test it out. It works great and have seen some of the local area that I have missed out on seeing over the years. Sometimes the more you see something the more you miss. Recommend doing close trips to see what we take for granted before it gets gobbled up by modernization. Longer trips are in the planning stage for this summer.

To get my Wii Fit.

My Nuvi 660 was very useful on Election Day yesterday. I received a few calls to go to locations I'd not visited before, and not having to worry about maps, figuring out directions, etc., was great.

I've just done a trip from Calgary to Victoria. I needed to find the Costco gas station in Vancouver and Sam(antha) got me there and out to the ferry efficiently.

Have played with the routing here and it's quite accurate with very few exceptions. A great travel companion!

Used the GPS to take me from the Florida Panhandle to Northern South Carolina. I make the trip once a year, but I let the GPS calculate its own route and I followed. It ended up adding an hour to the trip since it took me directly East and then directly North. My usual route takes me a NE direction.

On the way home, I took my route and just had the GPS "recalculate" as I went. It took about 2 hours into the trip before the GPS reported back the route I wanted to take.

It was funny to watch that with each recalculation, I reduced the time by several minutes.

Wow! Looks like I am the talkative one in this thread. What does it mean when you talk to yourself? umm...nm

Anyway went to Las Vegas recently and took the trusty Nuvi with the beanbag for the rental car. My fiance used it while I was at meetings during the day to find every shopping stop she could. According to her, the hardest part about the trip was getting the store owners to tell her their address rather than trying to explain to her how to get to their shops. I guess the concept of what a GPS does is still new to some folks.

BTW... was using the new maps with no complaints.

I think I spent most of the weekend as a chauffer, driving here and there, picking up (and delivering) stuff.

When daughter calls me and says she's at Kathy's house and needs to be picked up (and dad has no clue where Kathy lives), having the GPS eliminates the Google Maps step -- plug the address into the GPS and go!

I was camping at over memorial day weekend. We went to knoebles amusement park on Saturday. Afterwards we needed to find a walmart to get steaks for dinner and a blacket for the kids in the tent. It was really cold friday night. So I my Tom Tom direct me to the nearest walmart, Thanks to this site, all was fine until the GPS said right turn in 400 yards. So I started to slow to make the turn watching the map and the yard click down. Finally it said right turn I put one my turn signal to turn and when I slowed to make the turn it was nothing but two tire ruts into the woods ans up the side of a mountain. A much fun as it might have been in my wifes jeep it was not the day to try. So I just continued to go straight and let the GPS recalculate mad a right turn 1.5 mile down the road and the walmart was only another mile down that road. Later I browsed the map and it did go right to the walmart according to the map. Perhaps I need to check it out next year.

Just took my Nuvi 750 with me on a business trip to San Antonio. My first time being able to just pop the GPS into the rental car and drive away. Did a great job of getting me back to the rental agency among all the airport construction.

My C330 had trouble in between the big buildings in downtown Manhattan. It was funny because it showed my car floating sideways and otherways while being stopped.

I used my TT for a trip to Detroit to see the Red Bull Air Races. It took me right to the parking garage and around all of the I-75 construction. Amazing!

I went down to Cincinnati and had no problems down there. I couldn't imagine driving with a GPS. How did we do it before!?!? LOL

Landed in Nice, France on May 2. Rented a Renault from Budget, plugged in my Nuvi 350 and my wife and I were off on our road trip throughout Provence. Spent 4 days driving around the small villages of Provence. Nice, Aix-en-Provence, Calais, Louramin, and many more. The Nuvi worked great and completely eliminated any anxiety about driving around a foreign country (even at night). The Europe maps are a bit expensive, but since they aren't building out Europe like they are in Florida, I anticipate I'll be able to use these same maps for many years to come.

...how did we navigate w/o a GPSr? My wife and I used to call it "nagivate"... I'd drive...and she would nag-ivate me to the correct locations...sometimes !!
Anyway, I've been using my Garmin C-340 every time we go out, whether it's around town or out of town. I can't seem to get enough of all of the bells and whistles (that I didn't have ever before). This leads me to ask...."What are the latest / greatest bells and whistles that GPS's are going towards?" Name announcements, traffic updates, MSN, etc notwithstanding. I'm looking for anything on the cutting edge ...... if anyone knows of something "new", please let me know.... Thanks!

I took a motorcycle ride through the countryside. My GPS found several new roads I never knew existed.

I was out in PA last weekend, like gymkep we were on m/c's found some nice roads and was able to find fuel and lodging all off the gps! yippee.

We went to the the Arizona Heart Institute in Phoenix. We were on I 10. The gps said to stay right and exit onto the 202 then left to 51. We were in the car pool lane and I knew the car pool lane went to the 202. So I stayed left and jumped on the 202. Well, the problem was the 202 did not go to the AHI. The 202 exit merged with 51 and you actually get onto 51. So we were going the wrong way. TRUST YOUR GPS.

I have a Garmin Street Pilot 550 and used it on a trip with my family to Nashville, TN.

Now to the trip, we went to a few places in Nashville that we wanted to check out. We took the kids to Adventure Science and to Cooters (for the Dukes of Hazard fans) and then we went to Hard Rock Cafe to eat.

Adventure Science was pretty fun. The kids enjoy learning about different things and having the hands on experience while learning makes it even more fun for them. They have a big display about the human heart which was pretty cool. You can go to http://www.adventuresci.com/ for those interested in visiting.

Cooters is just a small store with a small museum in the back with lots of Dukes of Hazard items. They also have the General Lee, Daisy's Jeep, and the police car. It was interesting and brought back some memories with some of the items on display. Check out http://www.cootersplace.com/ for more info.

Now if there is a Hard Rock Cafe in the area we are there. We have been to several Hard Rocks over the years and the one in Nashville seemed smaller than the others. But, don't let the size deter you. The food was good as always and I like looking at the memoribila hanging on the wall.

We ended the day with a visit to Bass Pro Shops, I think we spent a couple of hours there. I could spend a day just hanging around a Bass Pro Shop.

This is the extent of my trip. My next trip will probably be to Atlanta or Charleston, SC within the next couple of months and of course the Garmin will be with me.

my route to work is over populated with radar/speed cameras.... thank goodness for the GPS... not that I'm racing; but there are a couple of traps where one tends to be at or over the limit rather than under... and they start tagging at +5 mph due to a school a block away.

Using mine to go to Panama City on Monday with a group of youth from our church.

My latest short trip was to Abuelo's tex mex. My last long trip was to Luckenbach, TX.

Leaving Sat, 6/14 from L.A. to Dubuque, IA. On the way back, going to Graceland (Memphis) and Carlsbad Caverns.

Hope to visit Luckenbach, TX on our next trip to Texas (love the song).

capst: Have fun and safe travels. Keep us posted on the highlights of your trip. I went to Cascade Caverns near San Antonio a few years ago. Loved it!

We'll be doing day trips or overnights on the motorcycle, weather permitting. We've already taken a couple trips to Kennebunkport, Ogunquit, Laconia, Goose Rocks Beach (Maine & NH). We pack the Garmin and use it more to find restaurants and attractions.

Used it to find a barber shop for the boy.

Don't forget to have a BIG bowl of Clam Chowda at Billy's in Wells Beach, ME
on your next trip !

went between Captiva Island and Punta Gorda Fl. to visit with sister in law and relatives. Went out fishing and just beat a storm back to the docks. Sure is tricky with all the canals but was able to find our way around thanks to the gps.

Went back to Iowa to visit my kids a couple of weeks ago and left the Garmin at home since I knew my way around town. I had lived around there for 28 years. But in the 9 years I've been gone, they have renamed so many streets and moved streets, I got lost.

Next trip up there, I'll definitely take it.

I am leaving mid week to visit the Savanna area. Never been their before, so I think it will go well. I will be sure to bring the Nuvi, can't get anywhere without it.

I will update when I return!