Finding RV-safe travel routes

[kalm_in_NJ]

Originally Posted by Pirate

Kalm,

Are you doing your routing just on the Garmin Nuvi?

Or are you doing your planning on Garmin BaseCamp and then uploading to your Nuvi?

BaseCamp is software you can download from the Garmin website at no charge.

In BaseCamp you can set your preferences for the types of roads to avoid.

You can select what type of "vehicle" you are building the route for. All the way from hiking to a Semi.

You can "build" waypoints, routes, POIs and then plan your trip around them.

Been doing so for 18 years now with either Garmin MapSource or BaseCamp. BaseCamp is a "database" application...so you never lose anything...unless you specifically delete. Thus you can save your data and trip logs.

Takes a bit of work to learn, but works very, very well!!

Pirate

BaseCamp sounds like *exactly* what my wife and I need. I just came back from another RV trip where the gps used roads I might not have chosen if it were raining or dark. Granted, our campground was somewhat off the beaten path but I would rather have stayed on the main road until the last possible moment as opposed to being routed up the back roads.

I'll be playing with the software on my pc this week and let you know how it works out.

Thanks again!
Ken

[Pirate]

Arlan,

The RV 760 LMT looks like a nice unit. It would have to be pretty much an "in truck" as it only has 1.5 hour battery life.

The III Plus was a nice unit, but it can't "auto route". Any route you built was simply a collection of straight lines between waypoint. Used mine for a number of years and then moved on up to the V and then the Quest, then the big jump to the Zumo 660.

But using MapSource and then BaseCamp have always been the key to success for me. Got me to spend the time to plan the trip, figure out where to get fuel, where to eat, where to stay and the route to follow.

So in the end, my GPS sort of wound up being a reference to look at on the dash...I had the whole trip in my head.

That's been my issue with using the GPS to enter start and finish addresses, or like the GPS in wife's Tacoma...you have to enter addresses, not coordinates...and then it decides how to get there. Ummm...NO!!

Just a few more thoughts,

Pirate