School me on cheap portable nav for Europe
 

Headed to Europe in the fall found a decent rental car for $15 a day. To get nav with the car was an additional $20 a day. I rather buy a cheap nav for $100 to $150 and keep it than pay $200 to rent one for ten days.

Anyone buy one for a Europe trip and had good success with functionality and maps over there? Most advertise they have Europe maps included, but just don't know if one unit has better more up to date ones than another.

As many know I don't own a cell phone, my wife's is paid for by her work and won't pay the charges to operate it over there so phone based nav is probably not an option unless there is a good iPhone app that works without hooking to a local tower.

I rented a portable wifi hotspot and tethered my phone to it. Infinitely useful since I used it walking around etc.

Google Maps has an offline mode:
https://support.google.com/maps/answ...rm%3DiOS&hl=en

For he price of renting a GPS for a couple of weeks you can buy a EU-set up GPS and leave it behind for less cost. But my last trips to the UK and EU I just slipped specific map chips into my Garmin GPS. I was clearing up saved locations last weekend and noted I had several hotels in France still saved.

Not sure how postal codes work on the Continent but they seem to be unique to every house or shop in Britain. Just enter the postal code with no other information needed there.

Several new "interstates" opened a week before my last trip to Ireland and the GPS had me in the middle of farm fields for a while. At least the road signs are in English there.

-- Chuck

Can you buy a pre-paid SIM and use that in a cell phone while there?

Use your phone with a overseas sim card or get an international hotspot like a Skyroam. That's what I did in Europe on top of the EU maps they loaded in the M3 when we did euro delivery pick up.

I see some of the apps, and will give those a look, but I do see a couple Garmin or TomTom's on ebay that come with Europe maps for less than a hundred. I just was wondering if anyone had used a particular unit that would be better than others. I could try the offline apps but for less than a hundred, I could get a GPS that could strap to my motorcycle if I ever went on a road trip with it, but I am kind of leaning toward giving up the motorcycle since I only ride once or twice per year and garage space is getting precious with the lawn tractor set to be delivered next weekend.

We have an acre of restored prairie on our lot that needs to be mowed once a year. I did it last year with a walk behind mower and it was 14 hours of really nasty work mowing six foot tall prairie grass. So with the lawn tractor coming I don't think I have been this excited for a vehicle since wanting the Cayman for about six years. Only this one goes 7 miles per hour. You know you are old when you are super excited about a lawn tractor. I should get a big old man sun hat for when I mow.

I used a 4 year old Garmin in Britain and Ireland. I may still have that chip. If anyone is interested I'll look for it. Got the UK/IR chip off Ebay for $20 rather than the official $100 Garmin price. Last trip was 15 months ago with a fancier Garmin and more recent chip to cover France and Belgium.

Nav on phones is tiny. And your USA phone will cost dollars a minute. If you need a phone just grab a blister packed prepaid phone off the rack at the first general store you run across. Call home first so everyone has your temporary number.

-- Chuck

iPhones don't need a cellular connection to operate a GPS, as noted in my first post (if you read the link). I use my iPhone while sheep hunting in the mountains, where there is no signal.