What's the best handheld / car GPS for Europe?

This message is from a fellow who's been lost driving in some of the
biggest cities in the world-Moscow, Sao Paulo, Caracas, etc. This
summer, we will travel in a van through Western Europe for 4 months.
Want to buy a handheld GPS around $300US - prime reason is to navigate
cities only. Prefer to wander in the countryside sometimes even
getting "lost." Not really necessary for me to have all the bells and
whistles, clocks, calculators, geocaching, altimeters, etc. Would
rather have more memory for maps. Any ideas would sure help me out?

Thanks, Larry

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I have a Garmin 76 + aerial as the windscreen tinting effects reception
+ a cigarette lighter power supply + some velcro. I use mapquest.com
and maporama.com which gives coordinates etc. One can ZOOM IN and print
great maps etc. I leave Australia for Europe in 2 weeks. I just hope
I've entered the correct numbers into the GPS.

On Fri, 15 Apr 2005 03:21:30 -0400, Larry


Larry,

I live in Europe and asked myself the same question. I ended up
buying a Garmin GPSMAP 76C, which seems to be the current
optimum for a light handheld that can also auto-route.

However, it costs more than twice your target price of $300, and
I know of no cheaper device with the same capabilities.

Since you'd need a laptop to load map segments anyway, my
proposal would be to buy mapping and auto-routing software only
and install a laptop in the van. Velcro may be your main tool to
keep the laptop in place.

You still need a cheap GPS receiver, but the Garmin GPS 10
( http://www.garmin.com/products/gps10/ ) along with the current
European City Select map would fit your bill very nicely.

You need to download the free nRoute software for auto-routing
while you drive with dynamic map display.

I'm sure that some other products are available from other
manufacturers as well, but I don't know them.

Hans-Georg

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Forgot to mention that a Pocket PC (PDA) will also work.

Hans-Georg

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Hans-Georg Michna wrote:

Yes, not within the budget but I just bought the TomTom add on for my
iPAQ and I am very pleased with it. It does a good job here in the UK.
I have not tried it outside the UK yet but I hope that it will work
just as well. It would be surprising if it did mainland Europe less
well than the UK.

In my package I got two maps "Great Britain" which is very detailed and
"Major Roads of Europe" which is much less detailed but it still looks
useful. I hope to get the full Europe maps soon. I would rush out and
buy them now except that I have heard rumours that TomTom may be
offering a good upgrade deal in May. =20

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