gps advice

[Callowaymom]

Hi, I've been geocaching for a little over a year now, with my kiddo's. We love it, but have been using a garmin nuvi (for the car) and it's not appropriate for going out and about by foot with kids. Then we tried the explorist 100 (*we got it for 20 bucks on craigslist). It worked, but we had to enter everything manually. Then we got the geocache app for my android phone, and that was do-able on the go, and we loved that. THEN we had to give up our phones when my husband lost his job. Now my dad helped us out getting a gps he used for hunting, the explorist 500 LE, and it has a usb connection, but will NOT let us download paperless without a TON of extra work. All we want is a gps that is handheld, and will let us go geocaching without hours and hours of writing and entering in coordinates etc. I don't want fancy, I honestly don't care about detailed maps, bells whistles no thanks. I just want to be able to go out with my kids and find geocaches on the go without much fuss or money. I'm searching craigslist like a madwoman, but I need to know what I'm doing before I spend too much for something I don't need. Anyone know of a good used gps I can look for that will simply let us plug in a usb, download a few caches with their info, and go? the garmin Nuvi works great for that, but it's more for driving and it's hard to pack it around and my husband doesn't want us breaking it by hauling it around in the bushes I don't want to spend more than about $50 bucks for a used one in good condition, anyone have any ideas for me? Also wondering about the explorist gc, made especially for geocaching- is it worth looking craigslist for? or are there better ones made just simply for downloading and looking for geocaches? thanks

[+Bear and Ragged]

As a Basic Member, you wont be able to make full use of a Paperless GPS unit.

 

Any decent unit will be able to be connected to a computer and at least download the coordinates from a .loc file.

 

If you get a new GPS, there are trial Premium Memberships available...

eg Garmin http://www.geocaching.com/garmin/freetrial.aspx

 

Worth a read is http://www.follow-the-arrow.co.uk/resources/gps.html#whichgps

OK, the prices are in UK Pounds... But for comparing various GPS units, worth a read!

[+Gitchee-Gummee]

Bear and Ragged is right about being "paperless".

 

A paperless unit does you little good without Premium Membership to take advantage of the paperless attributes.

 

Outside of that.... if your unit is indeed a 500, then it is probably a Triton, not an eXplorist.

The Triton line was discontinued with the release of the eXplorist line.

 

Most any old (or older) unit is fully well capable of getting you to the coordinates for a geocache placement. How you get those coordinates into the unit is another story.

 

I'm not diminishing the Triton line, just saying that your non-Premium Membership diminishes that which you expect you can do with it (or any other "paperless" unit).

 

Hand-entering coordinates into any GPSr unit is normal and it has been done for a long time. Nothing wrong with it.

When the time is right, go ahead and get the Premium Membership and use the bells 'n whistles.

 

With that said... you STILL should be able to send data to the unit. You do so by using "Send to GPS" on the individual cache pages.

Do note though, the loaded files will not be of a "paperless" nature.

 

If you cannot get the files to the GPSr, then there may be another problem that folks here in the forums can help you with. There are some really smart folks, here.

 

Best thing is... it doesn't cost you anything.

[Callowaymom]

thanks guys! I did have a Magellan explorist 500 LE, it was not a triton...but I don't mind entering coordinates manually if it is a cheaper unit. I just feel bad using one that is so "NICE" if I'm not using even half of what it offers. I appreciate the feedback, I'm currently looking up a Garmin etrex Venture- this may be my cheap fix.