truck stops

I've been a registered member for 20 minutes and I already asked a stupid question. I found all the truck stops in the complete list of POI files. Here's the next stupid questions. Can I use the POI loader from Garmin to load each separate file or do I have to combine all the truck stop POI files into one large file. I've never used the POI loader before.

Thanks.

Every time you load a POI to your GPS it wipes out the previous POI (unless you rename the POI file on the GPS, which I would wait to do until you're familiar with your GPS). Set it up like this with multiple folders.

[folder]MyCustomPOIs
...[folder]Truck Stops
......[file]Loves.csv
......[file]Flyingj.csv
...[folder]Rest Areas
......[file]Texas Rest Areas.csv
......[file]Oklahoma Rest Areas.csv

Then point the POI Loader to the top level folder (in this case, 'MyCustomPOIs'). Your nuvi will have two categories, 'Truck Stops' and 'Rest Areas', each containing the corresponding files.

Hope this helps.

I'm still learning myself, but wouldn't it make more sense to use Excel to combine the various truck stop POI files (or rest area files) into a single file before loading? That way, one could go to that single file to see where the nearest truck stop is.

Paul

That is up to the individual user; but one of the disadvantages of that method is all of the truck stops are run together. If you're looking for any truck stop, regardless of brand, that would work. If you want to look for a Flying J, then finding one in a combined POI would be more difficult. In addition, I like to keep my POIs organized, i.e. in separate categories.

Incidentally, there are lot easier ways to combine POIs than using Excel.

RT

Bob - we've all done it, the database of knowledge here is growing dramatically...

best of luck with your GPS!! RT probably answered much of it for you above.. POI's make a huge difference for me...

I am with RT, I like to load mine separately. For instance, I have category called "Convenience Stores", then I have two POIs called "Sheetz" and "Wawas". If i want to view just one of them, I can. If I want to view both, I just click on "All Categories"

I've started a new thread about smaller truck stops here:

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/11146

I'd like to POI the remaining truck stops that aren't here already, from the "big book"....

I agree a combined file would suck, but we could make a POI for the smaller independents. This would be highly useful for finding fuel, parking or a shower when you're somewhere off the interstate!

you may want to update your sheetz file they have opened up quite a few stores in the last couple of months in ..n carolina and pa and va ,my wife works for the company ...just letting you know

It would be fine if you never made any changes to the file. But if a new location was added to one of the three files, you would have to go in and redo your csv file. By keeping them separate you can grap the updates off the site and not do any additional formatting. The more changes made, the more chances for mistakes.

I have several catagories (folders) on my unit. They are food, stores, gas, banks, cameras - etc. If you look at my directory they look like this:

c:\garminc580\Food\burgerking.csv
c:\garminc580\Food\wendys.csv
c:\garminc580\Food\spangles.csv
c:\garminc580\Food\hogwild.gpx
c:\garminc580\gas\kwiktrip.csv
c:\garminc580\gas\qt.csv

and so forth.

If I want to see all the food options the top line when i go in to my poi, then food is "Show all." When you tap "Show all" it will merge all the food catagories for you, showing you the closest 50 food locations. See if that works for you.

Daniel

A combined truck stop file is a great idea, and one which you need to be driving a 53' trailer to appreciate: going down a busy 2 lane with no pulloff in sight, and NEED PARKING NOW. Having seperate catagories is great if you've got time to search through all of them. In a big truck, this is dangerous!

And if you've ever tried to find parking out east (especially Maryland), you'd appreciate a search feature for little truck stops, since there are very very few of the big ones. Drivers that mainly run the big roads rarely need the services of the little guys, but for someone like me it's an absolute neccesity to know where ALL the truck stops are, even the pay to park stops.

As I said, i'm going to start stripping out all the holes in the truck stop listings nationwide, since it seems nobody else has. And i'm not going to subdivide them by 2,000 catagories, because there are many mom & pops that use suppliers like citgo (and all citgo's won't fit a truck for fueling, parking and all don't have showers) for their diesel.

I'm leaving out the big 5 truck stops becaue there are already POI files for them, and I prefer having the special alerts and icons for them. But sometimes you'll go to whatever you can find. That's what this would be great for.

I'm hoping someone will help me on this, as this is a big project, and my first.

thanks