Help with Mapping please.

[Pantalaimon]

I have a Garmin Legend.

 

Right now I plug in the coordinates and hop in the car. I can't be bothered to print maps of the area, or do other such reseach. I just head toward the dot on my screen, if there are parking coordinates, bully for me, if not it can result in quite a bit of driving around.

 

So, my question is this: Can I download maps into my Legend? I've seen some talk of this in the forums, and I've tried wading through the Garmin page looking at the descriptions of the software, and I've tried piecing together some conversations in these forums, but I just thought it would be easier to ask the question from scratch.

 

What's my best options here for putting maps in my Legend?

 

Thanks,

 

Pan

 

Cachito ergo sum. I Geocache, therefore I am.

[+Hiemdahl]

http://shop.garmin.com/accessory.jsp?sku=010%2D10215%2D00

[peter]

Yes, you can download maps to your Legend, but the only ones that will work are those from Garmin. The most reasonable ones are MapSource Roads & Recreation (R&R), MetroGuide (MG), and Topo. All have some relative pros and cons.

 

R&R is most memory efficient so you can get the biggest area covered with your 8 MB memory, but the maps are getting rather dated and don't allow you to lookup specific street addresses or intersections. Accuracy is reasonable, but the worst of these three mapping programs.

 

MG has the best street maps and allows you to lookup street addresses, intersections, many business locations and other points-of-interest, but uses the most memory. MG is the only one of these three that will automatically calculate a route from A - B on your PC and you can then download that to your Legend.

 

Topo shows the elevation contour lines but has very dated road information. Best for off-road use.

 

Check them out using the MapViewer at:

http://www.garmin.com/cartography/mapSource/

for an area with which you're familiar and that should help you decide.

 

I use MG for car and bicycle trips and Topo for hiking.