Vehicle GPS's such as Garmin

[+Team.Sticky.Pine]

I'm very new to the whole Geocaching gig. My main question is the following: Will a Garmin GPS device used for vehicles for road navigation work as a GPS device for Geocaching?

[+Shaved Ewok]

As long as you set it to on foot you should be good. I used a TomTom for my first year and did very well on most caches.

[+Jayman11]

Yes and no. You can load geocaches into them however it's hard to get real accurate as they're made for road navigation. Also, a vehicle GPS is not made for the outdoor elements, a little rain or a drop to the ground might break it easily. Handheld is the best way to go, or if you have an iPhone, they also work excellent other than the battery life.

[+Team.Sticky.Pine]

So whats a good , reliable, durable, an

d reasonably priced handheld gps

[+Gitchee-Gummee]

So whats a good , reliable, durable, an

d reasonably priced handheld gps

That's a good question that deserves a question (or two) back: What are you willing to spend? How many bells & whistles do you want?

 

Most all hand-helds are good, reliable, durable and even waterproof.

Edited September 2, 2012 by Gitchee-Gummee

[+PeoriaBill]

Most car GPS units are not suitable for anything more than an occasional casual GPS hunt. As the previous posts mentioned the points of: waterproof, shock(dropping it) and accuracy need to be considered. As a final note, the battery life of Car GPS units is short and you won't be able to replace batteries with this type unit on the trail. Regards, Peoria Bill :>)

[+Team.Sticky.Pine]

Anyone using a Garmin GPS 60CSx...any thoughts ...should i go after one thats selling for under 200?

[+coggins]

Anyone using a Garmin GPS 60CSx...any thoughts ...should i go after one thats selling for under 200?

I would pass on those past generation units. The newer generation ones offer so much more. REI has the Oregon 450t on sale for one mire day, I would spend the extra $69 and get one of those before I went back to a 60 series again.

[+Lexmarks567]

I have a garmin nuvi and I use it to cache with. The problem with auto GPSs are you can't use them for caches that are hidden in forests woods or power trails on a hiking trail. You need a hikers GPS for those as the auto gps will make you back track or say your getting closer when your moving away from it even when set on foot and off road mode.

[+phlatlander]

Well, if you don't mind a rather short battery life and you are comfortable using lat/long data, then you can use an automotive gps.

 

I use a Nuvi 1350 and an Oregon 550. If the O550 is home I can still geocache. I load both units with geocache data from GSAK and actually, because the I can use TourGuide files on the Nuvi, I simply set the proximity to about 100m (300feet) so I can see little cache icons as I am driving along. With TourGuides you can also show a message and sound a tone. The Nuvi displays all the cache info, description, hints, attributes and logs in various text colours and large font.

 

When I actually want to go find a cache, I remember the decimal digits of the lat and long from the cache description and then use the Nuvi. Press and hold the center upper bar until your current lat/long appears and you're good to go.

 

Certainly the O550 is a better gps for gecocaching given its better batter life and full host of features and display items, but the Nuvi does an adequate job.

Edited September 4, 2012 by phlatlander

[+Lieblweb]

Put it in *Pedestrian* mode and give it a try...

 

I've never done it myself but I've heard that folks do it. I would tend to believe, it's much more challenging than having a smartphone or a handheld.

 

But yes...you can put the geocaches into the NUVI. We use POI LOader, GSAK, and a macro found on this forum.

[+BAMBOOZLE]

It's hard to beat driving to a cache with a Nuvi ( we use a 780 loaded using GSAK ) and walking to a cache using a handheld , Garmin Oregon 450= touchscreen, and 62S= buttons are hard to beat. I picked up a couple of 780's on Ebay for about $50 each.

[+michaelcouture]

I've been caching with a 265, 760 and 1490 as well as a 60csx in the past. Started out with the older nuvis (265,760) which seemed more accurate and easier to use than the newer 1490, although battery life for all nuvis is an issue. Later on my caching buddy got a 60csx, which was great for all day cache-a-thons and fared much better in woods and hilly terrain. Paperless geocaching with the nuvis was helpful, as we'd often bring a nuvi along as well to lookup cache details.

 

While you're deciding if geocaching is for you, try caching with the nuvi. It can be as basic as printing out the caches and manually entering the coordinates into the nuvi, to paperless geocaching and TourGuides. You decide!

[+Lexmarks567]

I have it set to ped mode and I enter the cords into the gps manually using the where to and scrolling to cords and entering it manauly. I tried a power trail with it and its useless for it since the trail was a hiking trail with thorny bushes and those things that stick to your clothes. it's not made for hiking trail caches.

[+Tobias & Petronella]

I have it set to ped mode and I enter the cords into the gps manually using the where to and scrolling to cords and entering it manauly. I tried a power trail with it and its useless for it since the trail was a hiking trail with thorny bushes and those things that stick to your clothes. it's not made for hiking trail caches.

 

I'm a little confused...

 

Are you saying that your Nuvi is useless on hiking trails or is it hiking trails with thorny bushes? As far as things that stick to your clothes, I'm guessing you are talking about the thorny bushes and not your GPS unit. :laughing:

 

We are using a 1350LMT Nuvi and not sure what your unit is. When we are not driving, we found that "Bicycle Mode" in the "Off Road" setting works best for us. We have over 4000 finds in just under 4 years, and yes, we have found a lot of caches in the woods. My first thought to your problem is user error.

 

I've been told by Garimn that the High-sensitivity receiver that they use is the same in both their Hand-helds and Car units. So if a current Nuvi and a current Hand-held both have the same receiver in them, they "receive" the signal equally the same. The main difference is what the unit does with this info and how it's packaged.

 

Tobias