+Hellfire1917 Posted February 2, 2015 Posted February 2, 2015 Begging your indulgence for asking what's probably a very basic question. I've been using my iPhone up until now and have found it great for UK caches. But I spend a fair bit of time working in France and Belgium and in order to avoid roaming charges, I'm thinking of upgrading to a handheld GPS unit so I can do some caching in my spare time over there. At present I'm in the very early stages of learning what they do and how they work. My question is - if I bought a GPS unit, would I then have to buy and instal maps of France and Belgium, as you do with a car satnav? If so, where do you get them, and are they very expensive? HF Quote
+Chrysalides Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 Can you geocache with data disabled on your phone? There are apps with offline maps (e.g. Locus Map, probably many more) that allow you to load geocaches from a GPX. Quote
+speakers-corner Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 Have a look at this site, I know is it in German but I have used the maps and they are good. They are OSM maps. Go to the bottom part (westliches Europe), there you have a choice of the whole of Europe, Frankreich Nord (France, North), Frankreich Süd (France, south) or Spanien (Spain). http://www.wanderreitkarte.de/garmin_de.php You could also contact talkytoaster and ask him, I have heard he has OSM maps of Europe as well as good ones of the UK. Quote
+Hellfire1917 Posted February 3, 2015 Author Posted February 3, 2015 Thanks for your suggestions, all. Much appreciated. HF Quote
+Calypso62 Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 If you end up buying a Garmin GPS, (and that would be my suggestion), then the following OpenStreetMap site is excellent for worldwide free maps. I've cached in the UK, Ireland, France, Canada, USA, Egypt, Vietnam, China, Singapore, New Zealand and, of course, Australia (that's where I come from) and used OSM extensively. http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ Quote
+Gushoneybun Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 If you end up buying a Garmin GPS, (and that would be my suggestion), then the following OpenStreetMap site is excellent for worldwide free maps. I've cached in the UK, Ireland, France, Canada, USA, Egypt, Vietnam, China, Singapore, New Zealand and, of course, Australia (that's where I come from) and used OSM extensively. http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ Plus one for this site. You can select the tiles you want or download whole countries. Do be aware it can take a couple of days for the maps to arrive when it is busy. Quote
+Chrysalides Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 If you end up buying a Garmin GPS, (and that would be my suggestion), then the following OpenStreetMap site is excellent for worldwide free maps. I've cached in the UK, Ireland, France, Canada, USA, Egypt, Vietnam, China, Singapore, New Zealand and, of course, Australia (that's where I come from) and used OSM extensively. http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ Plus one for this site. You can select the tiles you want or download whole countries. Do be aware it can take a couple of days for the maps to arrive when it is busy. Popular maps have a "Download Map Now" if you pick from one of the region selections. Even then, download speed is rather slow, so it is best to do this in advance. I'd spent a couple of hours downloading a state using flaky hotel wifi in the past. Quote
+MartyBartfast Posted February 3, 2015 Posted February 3, 2015 If you end up buying a Garmin GPS, (and that would be my suggestion), then the following OpenStreetMap site is excellent for worldwide free maps. I've cached in the UK, Ireland, France, Canada, USA, Egypt, Vietnam, China, Singapore, New Zealand and, of course, Australia (that's where I come from) and used OSM extensively. http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ Plus one for this site. You can select the tiles you want or download whole countries. Do be aware it can take a couple of days for the maps to arrive when it is busy. FWIW if you chose a whole country from their dropdown options then it will be more or less instantaneous as those maps are already generated and ready to download, it's when you select your own tile sets that it can take time as they then have to go off and generate the maps for you. Quote
+Hellfire1917 Posted February 3, 2015 Author Posted February 3, 2015 Thanks, all, for the further comments about the openstreetmap option. That looks really good. HF Quote
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