Minor roads and trails for custom topo maps for Garmin GPSRs

[+Hynr]

I am trying to create maps to load into my various Garmin GPSr. I have successfully created topo maps with hydrography on them. I have read through many of the threads here and found those quite helpful. I have learned that roads and trails are best done as separate transparent maps.

 

Since I own copies of City Select for my various GPSr, my philosophy is to create my maps to overlay over these with as little duplication as possible.

 

One piece that I still need is to get dirt roads and trails that are usable with off-roading and hiking. I am talking about the type that CS does not include (or typically shows incompletely). I understand that road data layers can be had, but I wonder if anyone here can advise me as to where to find ones that are reasonably up-to-date and/or of data quality that will be comparable to my the quality of the rest of the topo maps (which is quite nice).

[+IndyJpr]

One piece that I still need is to get dirt roads and trails that are usable with off-roading and hiking. I am talking about the type that CS does not include (or typically shows incompletely). I understand that road data layers can be had, but I wonder if anyone here can advise me as to where to find ones that are reasonably up-to-date and/or of data quality that will be comparable to my the quality of the rest of the topo maps (which is quite nice).

 

Assuming that you're looking for free data - it's basically going to be hit or miss depending on where you're at... Areas (states, counties, cities, etc.) have varying degrees of data - with varying degrees of accuracy - and varying policies on whether they make the data available to the public.

 

There's national data sets (tiger), usually state datasets (check your state DOT), and sometimes county datasets (check to see if your county website has a GIS page) - google will probably be your best bet, do searches with the phrase "GIS data" plus the name of the area of interest....

 

Hope that helps,