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Anyone used the Garmin Nuvi 500 to cache?


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I'm just wondering how good it is? Says it has paperless cacheing?!? We are going to replace our GPS for the car and saw this one at Costco.com ($199) and figured we'd have a backup gps for geocaching! (or use one each while looking) wondering if it is decent? Thanks!

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I use a nuvi 265 for caching, but recently bought a Garmin etrex. I dont know what kind of features the nuvi 500 has, but the 265 was an ok gps for caching. I hated having to always switch it in to pedestrian mode to find a cache though. And it wasnt always accurate due to the limited speed that it requires for its accuracy. I would suggest if you do buy it that you realize its made more for a car than to take walking. If you take into account the limitations of the unit then you should still have a lot of fun caching with it.

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I use a Nuvi 500 and have found a couple of thousand caches with it in the last couple of years. It is not perfect, but of all the units I have tried, it is the best "all-around" unit. There are others that I prefer on hikes and it has it's shortcomings, but if I could only have one gps for caching, the nuvi 500 would be it.

 

Edited to add: Caching with the Nuvi 500 or 550 is a completely different experience than caching with other members of the Nuvi family. The 500 and 550 have many features that make them excellent caching gps receivers, that are not shared with the rest of the Nuvi's.

Edited by Monkeybrad
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I'm just wondering how good it is? Says it has paperless cacheing?!? We are going to replace our GPS for the car and saw this one at Costco.com ($199) and figured we'd have a backup gps for geocaching! (or use one each while looking) wondering if it is decent? Thanks!

 

I sue the NUVI 500 to get me as close as possible on the road, then it is off with my Garmin had-held to get to GZ. But I love the combination of both together.

 

Scubasonic

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I'm just wondering how good it is? Says it has paperless cacheing?!? We are going to replace our GPS for the car and saw this one at Costco.com ($199) and figured we'd have a backup gps for geocaching! (or use one each while looking) wondering if it is decent? Thanks!

 

I sue the NUVI 500 to get me as close as possible on the road, then it is off with my Garmin had-held to get to GZ. But I love the combination of both together.

 

Scubasonic

 

I'm looking at the same deal. It does sound attractive. Does the 500 show the cache while in the driving mode or only in walking mode? I'm thinking this would be good to mount on my motorcycle and then switch to my trusty old Magellan Sportrak when I have to hike in. It would be nice to have the 500 for the cache info as well.

 

Spitfire & Mustang

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I'm just wondering how good it is? Says it has paperless cacheing?!? We are going to replace our GPS for the car and saw this one at Costco.com ($199) and figured we'd have a backup gps for geocaching! (or use one each while looking) wondering if it is decent? Thanks!

 

I sue the NUVI 500 to get me as close as possible on the road, then it is off with my Garmin had-held to get to GZ. But I love the combination of both together.

 

Scubasonic

 

Prefer the nuvi 500 for navigating to the parking spot and for essential cache information. Then opt for the Map 60CSx when caching by foot or mountain bike. Device of last resort is the HTC Incredible using Geo-Beagle (best for FTF sorties).

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I use a similar setup on my motorcycle, which would work on a car too. The difference being that I use a Garmin Zumo 550 and magellan triton 2000. High end stuff. If the Nuvi works then go with it. The Zumo can get me close on the road but if the cache is off the road I have to rely on my handheld. I think the biggest thing would be to make sure your car GPS has a battery, most don't.

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