Best unit for kids?

[Croycrew]

We are just starting to look in to Geocaching and I am looking at buying a unit that is relatively innexpensive BUT will do the job AND is easy for the kids to use LOL! I dont want to go to hight money wise because I need to also buy a car unit for myself because I am getting sick of getting lost after my parties in the middle of cities that I have never been to LOL!

 

Any advice would greatly be appreciated! I know I am going to get a Garmin of some kind... My mind says buy the one will ALL the bells and whistles but I don't have $400 extra dollars to throw at something that the kids may lose interest in in a month!

 

Thanks

Kristy

[+Renegade Knight]

Gecko 201. Everthing you need. Nothing you don't. Unless you want bells and whistles.

[+Chuy!]

Wow, you had to throw in the kids. How old are they?

 

Garmin's Geko line is affordable (Geko 101 is $70 at offroute.com) but the 101 model is discontinued and has no serial cable connection. The 201 & 301 use the outdated serial cable connection.

 

I recomend the Venture Cx or Legend Cx. The Venture is $180 at most internet retailers; the Legend adds a 64mb memory cards and usb data cable for about $40 more. It's an excellent value and you can later upgrade with routable mapping software and larger memory cards. For $280 I recently bought the Venture Cx with 2gb card, DC adapter, bike mount, and a carrying case. That included shipping and taxes. The Etrex Cx line features include alarm clock, calculator, moon/sun phases, calendar and stop watch. Plus with POILoader you can download an almost endless amount of waypoints. Not too bad for all these whistles!

 

For the kids, get them the Geko 101 or something affordable from Ebay, but for yourself, I really wouldn't get anything without a usb interface.

[+StarBrand]

Go for the Geko - inexpensive and easy to use. You can get a USB to serial adapter for around $15 for computer connections.

[Croycrew]

Wow, you had to throw in the kids. How old are they?

 

 

The kids are 15,13,12,8!

[+Renegade Knight]

Wow, you had to throw in the kids. How old are they?

 

 

The kids are 15,13,12,8!

 

Ok, then get the entry level eTrex. A bit more "cool" than the cutsey gecko.

[Neos2]

Any of the units folks have already mentioned will do very nicely, in fact alomost any GPS will work to find caches---but you want two things the way I see it: Something the kids won't think is just a toy and anothe runit that you can use every way you need it. You probably also don't want to replace any of the units you buy too soon.

 

The Gecko unit is cute and it works like a charm--if you wanted to have several units for the kiddos that may be the way to go. On the other hand, now that the "x" chipset unit are out and so popular, lots of people are selling their eTrex Legends for $50-$100 bucks so they can upgrade. The Legend makes a nice unit for the kids, and it has enough of the convenience features that they won't outgrow it too fast (comes with a cable, has basic maps, etc).

 

For yourself, you will want to get something like the Venture Cx or Legend Cx or even the 60Cx or 76Cx. They all come with bells and whistles and they can be used in the car. Price run about $180-$430 depending on exactly which one you pick, but they all go on sale fairly frequently.

 

My husband uses his 60Cs or our 60CSx to route himself while he is working, and we can use them for caching as well. Of course, you'll need the optional maps to take advantage of the autorouting and that will run you an additional $100 over the price of any of those units.

[Croycrew]

Ok I know i said I didn't want to spend much but I have had my eye on the GPSMAP 76csX for about a month now LOL! Is this a durable unit? I could also use it on our boat and send it fishing with the hubby and not worry about it LOL! Is the auto mapping decent or is it best to buy a car navigational unit? I guess if I am going to spend $200 on something I might as well spend more and get the best right??

 

Kristy

[marnen]

If you have a suitable phone, maybe you can use Geocache Navigator rather than buying a GPSr right away. This might be particularly good for the kids.

 

Oh, and you don't have to put "LOL" after every sentence.

Edited May 15, 2007 by marnen

[+Chuy!]

The mapping software (City Navigator - add NT for those with memory cards or large capacity hard drives) is the same for either the handhelds or dash units. Most dash units have touch screen and voice commands (some have mp3 and traffic alert capabilities). However in general the handhelds are more versatile. Think of it this way, the handhelds can be used for both routing in the car and for hiking, whereas the dash units (Quest is an exception) are pretty much stuck on the dash.

 

As for the kiddies, they can take turns "steering" the GPS. One thing I learned with my two daughters: to make the playing field a bit more fair, let each kid a take a turn finding the cache alone for, say, 30 seconds before the others jump in. This benefits the youngest the most 'cause in a mad rush, the younger kinds tend to get bullied out.

[+briansnat]

I'd say the Gek0 201. Inexpensive and very easy to use.

[lechwe]

Wallmart has the Garmin Etrex Legend online now for $117. Pretty good price for this unit and it will do everything the kids will want or need to do.

 

Good luck

[Neos2]

Ok I know i said I didn't want to spend much but I have had my eye on the GPSMAP 76csX for about a month now LOL! Is this a durable unit? I could also use it on our boat and send it fishing with the hubby and not worry about it LOL! Is the auto mapping decent or is it best to buy a car navigational unit? I guess if I am going to spend $200 on something I might as well spend more and get the best right??

 

Kristy

I have the GPSMAP 76cs and a GPSMAP 60csX and my husband has the GPSMAP 60cs. We've used all of them to autoroute our way to strange towns, and my husband uses his every day while he works. He drives a truck in the local area and has to go to lots of small private farms on the country back roads. He loves his unit and hates it when he forgets to take it with him. Hhis best friend travels a lot and has a boat and all we had to do was show him the 76 one time for him to decide that he had to have one (even though he already had a built in system on the boat).

 

We use City Select maps for autorouting, and while they aren't perfect, they are very good. Once in a great while we hit a stretch of road that has changed since the maps were made, but for the most part they take us where we need to go. We also have topo maps for the real back country, and while I always keep them loaded, I rarely switch over to them. I guess I could do without them for the most part (but I will say that twice I was very glad I had them--but that was a terrain issue and not a road issue).

 

If you plan to use it on the boat, the 76 is better suited than the 60 since it floats. The price for these units is a bit higher than $200, though--more like $300 and up and that's on sale. We bought our GPSMAP 60csX cheap from a cacher who had stopped caching soon after buying the unit.

[+BlueDeuce]

Wallmart has the Garmin Etrex Legend online now for $117. Pretty good price for this unit and it will do everything the kids will want or need to do.

 

Good luck

 

Yep, love the basic Legend.

[Neos2]

Wallmart has the Garmin Etrex Legend online now for $117. Pretty good price for this unit and it will do everything the kids will want or need to do.

 

Good luck

 

Yep, love the basic Legend.

Me, too. If you don't need autorouting, this one is the nicest one I know of for all purpose use. I still think it's the best bang for the buck. Even though we upgraded, we kept our 2 Legends so we'd have easy to use units we could lend to new folks we take caching with us.

Edited May 16, 2007 by Neos2

[roy&roz]

Wallmart has the Garmin Etrex Legend online now for $117. Pretty good price for this unit and it will do everything the kids will want or need to do.

 

Good luck

 

Yep, love the basic Legend.

Me, too. If you don't need autorouting, this one is the nicest one I know of for all purpose use. I still think it's the best bang for the buck. Even though we upgraded, we kept our 2 Legends so we'd have easy to use units we could lend to new folks we take caching with us.

 

We bought the Lowrance Go II....$99 @ Overtons, Lowrance also has the Go I, I think, for $69. Works wonderful and looks like a cell phone for those mugglers. I just received a Cobra GPS100 from an ebay source but I do not like this unit. I will relist it and try to find a cheaper Megellan unit.

[+SUp3rFM & Cruella]

How about a Magellan Spotrak? Any of these can be easily found on ebay or so. Usually they come with the cables, etc.

 

That's what we and our kids use!

[+briansnat]

Ok I know i said I didn't want to spend much but I have had my eye on the GPSMAP 76csX for about a month now LOL! Is this a durable unit? I could also use it on our boat and send it fishing with the hubby and not worry about it LOL! Is the auto mapping decent or is it best to buy a car navigational unit? I guess if I am going to spend $200 on something I might as well spend more and get the best right??

 

Kristy

 

It will be very hard to find a better unit than the 76CSX. It is durable and the auto mapping works quite well. I have its "sister unit" the 60CSX and it uses the same mapping software (City Navigator). It's not perfect but does the job quite well.

[+Thrak]

Ok I know i said I didn't want to spend much but I have had my eye on the GPSMAP 76csX for about a month now LOL! Is this a durable unit? I could also use it on our boat and send it fishing with the hubby and not worry about it LOL! Is the auto mapping decent or is it best to buy a car navigational unit? I guess if I am going to spend $200 on something I might as well spend more and get the best right??

 

Kristy

 

I have the 76CSx and I LOVE it. I bought the maps and I use the unit not only for geocaching but also for autorouting on trips, etc. As far as being durable --- I recently left mine on the hood of my truck and, as I made a turn leaving the cache site, I saw the unit fly off of the hood and go bouncing down the paved road, through the gravel at the side of the road, and into the weeds. I stopped, picked up the unit, examined the dings on the outside, and went on my way. It still works just fine.

 

I have a 1GB card in mine for maps (they didn't make a 2GB yet when I bought the card) and it holds all of Canada and the Western half of the US. A 2GB card will hold the maps for all of North America and Puerto Rico (which is what City Select had and City Navigator now has). The autorouting is very good and I love the ability to enter an address and get directions. You can also tell it to Find and you can choose what to find such as lodging, fuel, intersections, shopping, etc. For instance you can tell it to find a place to eat and then select the category of food such as fast food, mexican, etc. and it will tell you the restaurants that match your search. Select one of them and it will route you there. VERY handy when traveling in a strange town. Need to find a branch of your bank? Same thing.

 

One thing I would suggest. If you buy a nice unit get an invisibleSHIELD for it. This is the best screen protector out there. You can buy cheap ones but they aren't the same. Mine has saved my screen several times and is well worth the purchase.

Edited May 16, 2007 by Thrak

[+Night Stalker]

When I bought my 60CS I figured I would use the auto routing software just for work. Boy was I wrong. It is the greatest thing since sliced bread for geocaching. When I first started out I spent a lot of time wandering trying to find the road that gave me the best access to a cache. Now I use the find and goto on my GPS. the auto routing software will take me to where I need to park better then 90% of the time. The rest of the time it will get me close enough to where I need to be that I can figure it out pretty quickly. This saves tons of time that I can now actually cache instead of driving.