garmin 450 free maps

May 16, 2013

I am looking at purchasing a new garmin 450. This is about all that I can afford to spend right now. I see people mention free maps. Are these maps useful and good quality or should I spend the extra money to buy the maps. Any information you could give would be helpful. I have never owned a GPS before and am new to caching. I have been using my iphone 4. It does a good job as long as you are out in the open.

Thanks in advance

May 17, 2013

there are lots of free maps on http://www.gpsfiledepot.com. In particular, Ohio maps are here: http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/state/oh

see also this post:

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=301561

here is a good thread:

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=301820

and here is my detailed standard reply to the "what maps should I get" question:

_____________________

Goofing around on forums reading about custom maps, and I reverse engineered a link and was surprised to see this folder allows listing of contents: http://www.garmindev...rminCustomMaps/ You can download all of the KMZ files that Garmin has created directly from that link. I checked out a couple and they are pretty nice. It is much easier to go directly to that link / folder than drill through all the forum postings in the forum below to find the same maps... https://forums.garmi...splay.php?f=206 Perhaps this isn't the biggest hack in the world, and perhaps it has been discussed before, but perhaps someone will find it handy... ___________________ Here is a great way to get a very good, very detailed, free street / trail map of the entire United States, again repeating another post I made somewhere else: ___________________________ I was looking at an area with a lot of trails but no PDF/JPG or any kind of trail map that I could find anywhere to use to make a KMZ (custom map). The trails I wanted are on http://openstreetmap.org, so I started poking around to see if there was a way to get those onto my GPSr. The solution was amazing: 1) go to http://www.osmmaps.com/ 2) download the IMG / zip file - took 3 hours, so I let it run overnight 3) Unzip the IMG file - for me, the US file was / is 3.5 GB (yes, gigabytes) 4) rename the IMG file (since my Garmin GPS supports multiple IMG files) 5) copy the IMG file to the "\garmin" folder on the SD card in my GPS 6) "Enable" the OSM map on the GPS 7) At this point, I couldn't see the trails on my GPSr that I could see on the openstreetmap.org website. I figured I was out of luck...but... So this step may only apply to my GPS (GPSMAP 62/78 series), but perhaps there are similar steps for other Garmin GPSr: go to SETUP MAP, ADVANCED MAP SETUP, DETAIL, select MOST, and bingo! I now have the entire US version of openstreetmap.org on my GPSr, including all the trails you can see on that website. Absolutely amazing. Caveats: I have read that the OSM map is a snapshot from ~2006 census data files, and there are some known inaccuracies in the data, especially in the Western US. OSM seems to be fine for me here in the NE, but buyer beware. This IMG file is not transparent, so I can't see any other IMG files at the same time. I received directions on how to make it transparent, but I haven't yet. This IMG file has no topo contours (and since it isn't transparent, I can't see the contours from my other IMG file, even with both of them enabled). This IMG file is not a routable map. ________________________________ The only way that I found to test out maps was to download them and try them out on the GPSr. For me, here in New England, I eventually decided to pay the $$ for the Garmin 24K Topo Series, and I'm happy with my decision. And I tried a LOT of free maps before that, most of them from gpsfiledepot. Regards Dave

2.7k · May 18, 2013

It really does depend where you live. The topo maps in the U.S. are generally pretty good. They all will give you fairly accurate topographic data as well as roads. Some go beyond and give you trails or land ownership information as well. Since each map is made by a different person, expect variation in visual styles, but overall, you can get by without needing Garmin's Topo 100k as your base map.

May 20, 2013

and here is my detailed standard reply to the "what maps should I get" question:

_____________________

<gibberish>

Ahh! What happened there? And why don't I have a way to edit that post?

Anyway, what I was trying to say was:

Here is a post I made about free KMZ maps:

______________

Goofing around on forums reading about custom maps, and I reverse engineered a link and was surprised to see this folder allows listing of contents:

http://www.garmindev...rminCustomMaps/

You can download all of the KMZ files that Garmin has created directly from that link. I checked out a couple and they are pretty nice.

It is much easier to go directly to that link / folder than drill through all the forum postings in the forum below to find the same maps...

https://forums.garmi...splay.php?f=206

Perhaps this isn't the biggest hack in the world, and perhaps it has been discussed before, but perhaps someone will find it handy...

___________________

Here is a great way to get a very good, very detailed, free street / trail map of the entire United States, again repeating another post I made somewhere else:

___________________________

I was looking at an area with a lot of trails but no PDF/JPG or any kind of trail map that I could find anywhere to use to make a KMZ (custom map). The trails I wanted are on http://openstreetmap.org, so I started poking around to see if there was a way to get those onto my GPSr. The solution was amazing:

1) go to http://www.osmmaps.com/

2) download the IMG / zip file - took 3 hours, so I let it run overnight

3) Unzip the IMG file - for me, the US file was / is 3.5 GB (yes, gigabytes)

4) rename the IMG file (since my Garmin GPS supports multiple IMG files)

5) copy the IMG file to the "\garmin" folder on the SD card in my GPS

6) "Enable" the OSM map on the GPS

7) At this point, I couldn't see the trails on my GPSr that I could see on the openstreetmap.org website. I figured I was out of luck...but... So this step may only apply to my GPS (GPSMAP 62/78 series), but perhaps there are similar steps for other Garmin GPSr: go to SETUP MAP, ADVANCED MAP SETUP, DETAIL, select MOST, and bingo! I now have the entire US version of openstreetmap.org on my GPSr, including all the trails you can see on that website. Absolutely amazing.

Caveats:

I have read that the OSM map is a snapshot from ~2006 census data files, and there are some known inaccuracies in the data, especially in the Western US. OSM seems to be fine for me here in the NE, but buyer beware.

This IMG file is not transparent, so I can't see any other IMG files at the same time. I received directions on how to make it transparent, but I haven't yet.

This IMG file has no topo contours (and since it isn't transparent, I can't see the contours from my other IMG file, even with both of them enabled).

This IMG file is not a routable map.

________________________________

The only way that I found to test out maps was to download them and try them out on the GPSr. For me, here in New England, I eventually decided to pay the $$ for the Garmin 24K Topo Series, and I'm happy with my decision. And I tried a LOT of free maps before that, most of them from gpsfiledepot.

Regards

Dave

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