GPS Devices vs Cell Phone Apps

leenscottfl

For years I have used my Garmin GPS and the POI feature with little trouble. The first link is to a site with a lot of info you may find useful. The other is to a page with links to several POI files. The files contain every federal, state and local campground with descriptions, contact into, etc. I have found the POI files very accurate and complete. No commercial campgrounds at all. The way I use it is to enter a general location, such as Winslow, Az. Then I tell the GPS to find campgrounds either along the way or near Winslow. With only a couple of glitches, such as campgrounds being shut down, it is right on the money. Just download the POI files and install them onto your GPS and you are ready to roll. All for free.

http://www.uscampgrounds.info/

http://www.uscampgrounds.info/takeit.html

ChanW

leenscottfl said:

....
The first link is to a site with a lot of info you may find useful. The other is to a page with links to several POI files. The files contain every federal, state and local campground with descriptions, contact into, etc. I have found the POI files very accurate and complete. No commercial campgrounds at all. The way I use it is to enter a general location, such as Winslow, Az. Then I tell the GPS to find campgrounds either along the way or near Winslow. With only a couple of glitches, such as campgrounds being shut down, it is right on the money. Just download the POI files and install them onto your GPS and you are ready to roll. All for free.

http://www.uscampgrounds.info/

http://www.uscampgrounds.info/takeit.html

Those POI files are excellent! Thanks for pointing them out.

There's also info on the page that tells how the data can be imported into various other mapping apps. Any app that reads .gpx or .csv POI files should be able to import them.

I just installed the Android app they're recommending on the page, "Locus", which seems to work very nicely, and interacts with Google Maps, Street View, and other Google mapping apps.

If you plan ahead a bit, you can get Google Maps to pre-download your maps, so you have them for those times that you have no broadband coverage. 

Nomad

I was in a no cell coverage at all area the last two days - And I mean "none", wouldn't even display the carrier name, just "no service". Had no trouble with Apple maps on the iPhone and iPad. Apple's maps are "vector" based vs image tiles (unless you have satellite view (all those are images). With vector, the app can download very large swathes of territory for very little memory usage. Garmin (and probably the other GPS manufactures use vectors also). Google maps on the other hand needed to download image tiles - maybe they've finally changed, don't use so don't know.

Nomad

Jenn - Heads up...
Was just in an area the last couple of days with there was absolutely no cell signal, none - Joshua Tree NP. I had full LTE signal just outside the entrances so thought I'd be good to go but it went to nothing within a mile (or less). Was talking to a BLM guy and he said they don't allow cell towers that can be seen from within the park - they want pristine views. A cell booster wouldn't help there as there is no signal to boost.
I didn't check the cell coverage map before hand so it was a surprise - now that I've looked, yep, a total dead zone no matter the carrier.
Other than NE New Mexico two moths ago, this was the only other spot that was totally dead.

-----
Speaking of Joshua Tree - absolutely beautiful place. Great scenic campgrounds. Cottonwood has asphalt pads, the rest (the prettiest) are dirt/sand. But, Cottonwood pads are so uneven (sloped) that the only way I could get level was to jackknife the T@B in sideways. Even then I had to use all my leveling blocks.

ChanW

Google's been using vector for a while, but their method for pre-downloading the maps is pretty unintuitive (read: convoluted and dumb).

Here's a link to info about it, but I still had to dig for a while to find the option to save maps: How-to-use-google-maps-offline-on-IOS-or-Android

We have Sygic for those times that we're out of cell coverage while driving. For hiking, we use Backcountry Navigator, which allows you to download topographic maps of the area you expect to be in.

jkjenn

Thanks, Pxlated. You are right, you have to have a signal to boost it. Yellowstone has a few spots with service but much of the park is without service. Bryce, Zion, and Arches were spotty. Colorado is hit or miss. At my campsite outside of Aspen, total dead zone but decent signal just down the road.

I will be on a non camping trip for my day job in Vegas soon and plan on tacking on a couple days to explore Valley of Fire and Red Rock Canyon, and maybe somewhere else.

mash2

It is a stunning place.  Beautiful evening skies in the high desert.  And definitely no cell service. Much of mojave is at best weakly served.  

jkjenn

I will have to renew my Spot Satellite tracker before I leave. I let it lapse while I was back east. I really wish they had a month to month plan.

davel4wa

I am a long time user of MS Streets & Trips and acquired the last version available (2013 as I remember) a couple years ago. You need a PC to run it and I like to leave my PC at home when I am on the road. Nonetheless if  you are after pre-planning a longish trip with many stops, it is irreplaceable. There are no updates available unfortunately so the maps are not updated. This is really only a problem in populated areas in regard to new streets that may pop up. As someone mentioned here there are POI databases available which can be imported into S&T. Want to know where every Costco is located or everyone with a gas station, it's out there. Walmart, Crackerbarell, and many others have databases available as well. The ability to get a real snapshot of your trip, including driving breaks, overnight stays, side trips is unmatched by any software/app I have tried and I have tried soooooo many. Once you are on the road there are many apps/mapping programs that are good for making local plans and alterations to your original plan but nothing beats S&T for initial planning. Microsoft suggests using the trip planning feature in Bing Maps as a replacement. Not a replacement by any stretch of the imagination.  It took me a while and a lot of research before I found out Bing Maps has a limit of 25 waypoints and you are never advised of this when you hit the limit. Waypoints are listed with letters A-Y. That's right, not A-Z. When you hit that point the 'add stop' button disappears but you can still search for locations and use the 'add to route' feature there. It does add it but when you add further stops it just replaces the last one and when you try to run the routing, it fails with a message that it can't find a route between two of the waypoints, no indication of which they are. It appears that Microsoft does not want to get back into the mapping software business and has allocated some barebones resources to the Bing Maps unit to quiet all of the outrage over discontinuing S&T. Along with S&T, Autoroute and MapPoint also got the axe. There is a lot of software out there to replace MapPoint which was more business oriented, allowing businesses to embed it on their websites to give directions to their facilities and for sales businesses to route their salesmen. These are not oriented toward the RV and general vacation planning segment and tend to be pretty pricey with yearly payments required. Google is ending their MyMaps experiment at the end of this month and it was kind of clunky anyway but you could export GPX files. The upside was that you could save MyMaps routes and thereby access them on Google Maps on your phone or tablet. Nothing in this realm comes  close to the ease of use and flexibility of S&T. If you have a PC or even a Mac with a Windows emulator, you can still download it for free or low cost. Try it out, I think you will love it. We all wish for an app that will run on our phones and tablets but until someone decides there is money to be made it's just not going to happen.

dCliffhanger

I've had several different Garmins that have gotten me everywhere and back reliably. I like the turn by turn directions right in my face. And, it provides 3D and just about everything else I want to know.  I am considering putting a backup camera on my new T@B and really don't want to have another device on my dashboard. Garmin GPS's support their camera's - but sadly mine is to old. So, I'm considering upgrading to one of their RV gps's or even the unreleased as yet Overlander and their camera.  I somehow grew up using a phone as a phone, now text, or sometimes email, now camera and Facebook. But, I've always left my gps location function off. Just don't like being followed and it saves data allowing  me to use a AT&T plan never using more than 500 Mb so long as I've got wifi. The Garmin Overlander is ridiculously pricey but it provides RV specific routing and includes off-road Topo maps and routing.

N7SHG_Ham

I have a couple of vehicle Garmin's I much prefer to phone apps. I don't think any one device is perfect, but I like using a standalone unit as no dependence on outside infrastructure. One of mine was the top of the line "trucking" version when I bought, this allows entering a vehicle profile, with all your weights and dimensions and is supposed to keep you off of routes based on your criteria. Can even select hazmat to keep you out of tunnels, etc. Which could be handy with propane on board a camper.

This may or may not be news, but there are only a very few sources for the database data, when you fire up a Garmin for instance, there are a bunch of copyright rights on the splash screen, that is because all that stuff is licensed from a 3rd party. Point is if one brand shows a road wrong, likely the next will too.

I like Garmin because (although probably not exclusive to them), I can create any GPX file, drop and drag it to the Garmin and it talks me right to my points as if built in POI.

DougH

@jkjenn : we bought the cheap:

weBoost Drive Sleek
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073V5S3T7

...and while it only bumps the dBm by maybe 5 on a good day, it has been enough. Places that used to have repeated dropouts during calls just stay connected now.  But I just have the antenna on the car or T@B roof; I haven't tried a pole yet.