Cheap satnav for USA

Mattygroves2

Or just buy a good road atlas and navigate the old fashioned way. Much more fun.

Murphy_The_Cat

Mattygroves2 wrote: »

Or just buy a good road atlas and navigate the old fashioned way. Much more fun.

That is probably the single worst piece of advice that I've read on MSE.
Ever.
On any thread.
About any subject.
By any poster.

Moto2

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

That is probably the single worst piece of advice that I've read on MSE.
Ever.
On any thread.
About any subject.
By any poster.

That's probably the biggest exaggeration I've ever read on MSE


Navigating by paper maps is great fun if that's what you want. Actually, navigating with no maps at all in the vehicle and getting lost all the time is great fun too.

PeacefulWaters

I'd certainly suggest using more than maps. The USA is a big old country and if you head the wrong way on the wrong highway it might be two hours before you realise it.

The other piece of advice I'd throw in would be to have back up chargers for whichever device you do use. Our sat nav charger broke and finding a store with a replacement cable wasn't easy. Fortunately the soon to be ex-Mrs PW managed to do something clever with her spare phone charger to work the sat nav. A £2 back up cable from Amazon would gave been preferable.

ossie

Copilot Premium USA for tablet £7.99 from Play Store will be all you need!

mchale

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.aponia.bor3.offlinemaps&hl=en_GB

Murphy_The_Cat

Moto2 wrote: »

That's probably the biggest exaggeration I've ever read on MSE


Navigating by paper maps is great fun if that's what you want. Actually, navigating with no maps at all in the vehicle and getting lost all the time is great fun too.

I'VE told you millions of times not to exaggerate.

Road maps -- you've been on the go for 20 hours. You're in a strange country, at night, going along a 5 lane interstate and you're approaching a cloverleaf junction, with another cloverleaf junction just afterwards and you're not sure if you've supposed to be taking Donald Trumps Jockstrap Parkway or Meatloaf Highway to Hell.

Not a problem.Just stop in the middle lane and look at your road map.

Officer Doughnut would be delighted with you.

ACG

I downloaded google navigation thing on my phone. That was in October, it worked fine and I just turned the phone/internet bit off just to make sure there were no charges.

Mattygroves2

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

I'VE told you millions of times not to exaggerate.

Road maps -- you've been on the go for 20 hours. You're in a strange country, at night, going along a 5 lane interstate and you're approaching a cloverleaf junction, with another cloverleaf junction just afterwards and you're not sure if you've supposed to be taking Donald Trumps Jockstrap Parkway or Meatloaf Highway to Hell.

Not a problem.Just stop in the middle lane and look at your road map.

Officer Doughnut would be delighted with you.

I wouldn't be on an interstate in the first place or driving after 20 hours - that is dangerous even with a sat nav. Part of the fun of a road trip for us is finding interesting roads to go down that avoid the main highways - the way of getting there is as important as the destination for us.

I have done many trips in the States (last one coast to coast) and in Europe without a sat nav and never got too lost. It's fun getting the map out at breakfast and devising the route to take in some interesting places. I'd never have found the dirt road out of Grand Teton National Park following a sat nav similarly the cut through from Custer State Park down to Windy Cave both of which saved at least an hour of driving as well as being more fun to drive.

Moto2

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

I'VE told you millions of times not to exaggerate.

Road maps -- you've been on the go for 20 hours. You're in a strange country, at night, going along a 5 lane interstate and you're approaching a cloverleaf junction, with another cloverleaf junction just afterwards and you're not sure if you've supposed to be taking Donald Trumps Jockstrap Parkway or Meatloaf Highway to Hell.

Not a problem.Just stop in the middle lane and look at your road map.

Officer Doughnut would be delighted with you.

Everyone seemed to manage just fine until very recently without the electronics, in fact, I'm going to say it was much more fun.
Until I too became a slave to Lord Tomtom and the Duke of Garmin, I spent many, many trips enjoying the delights of finding routes 'on the go' - nothing ever happened that was a disaster.
I still go off on multi day trips on motorbikes without a sat-nav or even a proper map sometimes, as they usually have one on the wall in petrol stations.

Fine, if you want to plan your trips down to the last second of where you'll be and on what road, totally sucking the life out of it, go for it, it's your holiday - but to say using a road atlas to navigate is the worst advice you've read on here in plainly wrong and will suit many people just fine.