maps for garmin montana 650

[+jocko126]

Hi all.

I recently got a garmin montana 650 and i'm loving it so far. I loaded some topo maps and some navigation maps that were free and there very nice but they are kind of out dated. I live in an area with a lot of one way streets and when I try to you to a geocache it tries to have me go the fastest way even if I need go down the wrong way of a one way street. I guess my question is if I pay for garmins navigation maps will they be better and more up to date or will same thing happen. I don't want to spend the money if its not needed. Thanks and any help would be great.

 

jocko126

[alandb]

The Garmin City Navigator maps should route correctly on one-way streets as long as you are using a driving profile such as automotive or motorcycle.

[+jocko126]

Cool. I will look into buying it,but I'm in no hurry. I'm still learning how to use my GPS unit. I always used my phone before to find geocaches.I may use phone and GPS both until I figure out all the bells and whistles my GPS has.

 

Thank you for the information

 

Jocko126

[+HHL]

[...] I'm still learning how to use my GPS unit. [...]

 

Then this might be useful info for you:

Need for Speed

Picture this (works with GC.com as well)

Custom Symbols

 

Have Fun

Hans

[+jocko126]

Thanks Hans for the helpful information.

 

jocko126

[+Mineral2]

generally speaking, unless there has been major geologic activity since your map was made (or rather the data for it was collected), topographic maps don't really go out of date. Sure, your map may not have all of the current roads, but the topographical features should hold up for decades - with maybe the exception of barrier islands. They shift fairly rapidly.

 

Open Street Map, the source for free routable road maps, are only as good as the user data. So if your area is mostly one-way streets, you might go into open street map and modify the map to display those streets as one-way. It may take a few weeks, but eventually the new data will make its way on the weekly builds of the OSM for Garmin.

[+Hynr]

I live in an area with a lot of one way streets and when I try to you to a geocache it tries to have me go the fastest way even if I need go down the wrong way of a one way street. I guess my question is if I pay for garmins navigation maps will they be better and more up to date or will same thing happen. I don't want to spend the money if its not needed.

I used to pay. I stopped once the OSM maps got pretty good (which they generally are).

I think you can find many sources for free Garmin maps here:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_Map_On_Garmin/Download

I have a Montana 650 and all the routable streetmaps that I have tried from the various sites there have worked fine. Some are a little "klutzy" - you'll know what I mean - but all are better than just the basemap.

 

The key to topo maps is to find ones that are transparent so you can have them over the streetmaps. So this is something that you need to be aware of: if you load a street map and it does not show even though you enabled it in the settings, then you might need to check that another map is not hiding it. There are settings in the Map Setup that let you control this.