What is the best GPS for us?

We are a group of students traveling to Central America for an
engineering project. We have little to no experience with handheld GPS
units and were wondering which would be optimum for our application.

Objective:

-create a map of a particular village with houses and other important
infrastructure included
-calculate distances
-note important elevations (an embedded barometric altimeter would be
helpful)

Budget:

$400 (we will be returning to the village throughout the years and
would like to invest in a reliable unit, so we may be willing to pay
more)

Geographic info on the village:

-mountainous area of about 1300m
-lots of trees
-40km from nearest urban city


We probably need a unit with Data logger capabilities and a display
screen, right? What do you think?

Thanks

Note a barometric altimeter needs a reference. For most people, this
is the nearest airport. In the middle of nowhere, I'm not sure what
you would do. Data logging is a bit confusing since any GPS will
record a trail

I guess the first question is what kind of accuracy do you need?

On 5/9/10 3:49 AM, miso@sushi.com wrote:


More often the reference is the last known contour line position
on the topo map. My experience is that the altimeter is often
essential in densely forested areas.

Why are you embarking on this endeavor?
[PS - your post doesn't touch on issue ;[

k wrote:

level of accuracy

We don't expect the GPS to be very accurate (especially
elevations)...we are just trying to construct a general map of the
area.

Since you probably want numbers I'll just throw some out there
elevations: +-20m
x,y distances: +-5m