Caching in a foreign country

[+stijnhommes]

Hi everyone. I'll be off on holiday in Italy on May 8 and I'm wondering what my best option is. I have no idea if the map on my GPS includes Venice and I'm not happy about the potential for a lot of expensive data traffic on my phone. Is there a way to download a cheap Venice map to my GPS? What App do you recommend if I want to use pre-downloaded maps without an internet connection?

[+Heimdall5008]

What GPS do you use?

 

For Garmin devices exists a nice web application from a college that generates custom selected maps from the OpenStreetMap data.

[+stijnhommes]

I guess that means I'm in luck. I have a Garmin. It is an old GPSMapCx60, though.

[+MartyBartfast]

Have a look here: http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ they should work on a GPSmap60Cx

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Hi everyone. I'll be off on holiday in Italy on May 8 and I'm wondering what my best option is. I have no idea if the map on my GPS includes Venice and I'm not happy about the potential for a lot of expensive data traffic on my phone. Is there a way to download a cheap Venice map to my GPS? What App do you recommend if I want to use pre-downloaded maps without an internet connection?

 

What kind of GPS do you have? If it's a Garmin I'd recommend the Routable Open Street Maps for Garmin. http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/

 

They're free and the coverage is quite good. You can download a map for the entire country or select specific "tiles" that will cover that are you'r visiting. It looks like there are five tiles which cover Venice and a large enough surrounding area to handle any nearby caching you might do.

 

I *do* recommend using pre-downloaded maps. The typical rate for international data roaming is $19.95 per megabyte. If you have a smart phone, before taking it out of airplane mode make sure that data roaming is turned off. The official app does allow you to download map tiles associated with a pocket query. It takes quite awhile to download the tiles, but once you do, you *can* navigate to caches without data enabled. When I travel internationally I have my handheld GPS and an iPhone with me. I've found cache with the phone but almost always prefer using my handheld GPS. As soon as you arrive in Venice, and have a clear sky, turn on your GPS since it can often take awhile to get a satellite fix after moving it a great distance.

 

[+stijnhommes]

Can someone help me along. I downloaded the right map tiles and got an install file and a regular garmin map file, but I'm afraid that loading that onto my garmin will overwrite my pre-existing (and paid for map). Can someone tell me how to add the new data to the existing map or how to work unlock codes so I'm sure I can get the old map back afterwards?

[+Ruddles1325]

With the latest Garmin versions you can have whatever file and you want for your map so you don't have to worry about it overwriting any other map yo may have already installed. Just give your newmap a unique file name ( of course do not change the extension - the bit after the dot) and copy it to your device. You can ( should) back up the data on your device y making a copy of it to your computer before loading the new map.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Can someone help me along. I downloaded the right map tiles and got an install file and a regular garmin map file, but I'm afraid that loading that onto my garmin will overwrite my pre-existing (and paid for map). Can someone tell me how to add the new data to the existing map or how to work unlock codes so I'm sure I can get the old map back afterwards?

 

I'd recommend getting a second micro-SD card. You can pick up a 4GB for under $10US then use that for downloading OSM maps for whenever you travel. Just swap card for when you're traveling and when you're at home. That's what I do and it works quite well.