Forum menu
Does anybody out there have any recommendations for a gps for navigating off road in France. Last year I went to foret mervent, and got horrifically lost, causing a great deal of grief and upset. I'm currently toying with the idea of getting a gps with mapping capabilities or an android phone like an htc desire and downloading maps etc for when I return there this summer (Mervent is ace btw). I know nothing about phones, I have a garmin edge 200 which has limited mapping to say the least. Do I need to buy anything specific to France? What would you do in my situation?
Garmin edge 800 or 810. Or Satmap Active 10. You won't get lost with those.
Or Garmin Etrex 20 or Dakota 20 or Oregon 450 or similar. You can get free maps from OpenStreetMap.
I use my phone with viewranger and opencyclemap or proper ign maps. The ign maps are a lot better but you need to pay for them, cheaper than paper maps though.
I use Memory Map on my iphone.
You have to pay for some of the IGN mapping but its good.
I'm currently trying out ViewRanger (on an android phone) with free OpenCycleMap tiles downloaded (you can pay for IGN mapping too).
I'll report back next week.
Electronic maps are fine but you may want to consider taking a real paper map of the area and a compass with you (and know how to use them)
Sods law will dictate that batteries will run out if you rely on them.
If you caused a lot of grief last time you don't want to be repeating it.
Thanks very much everyone! Lots to mull over but at least I have some idea now!