Well, that kind of depends on you. If you think you may use it on other occasions, like in your home country or on another trip, and the maps are not too expensive, then spending a few extra dollars and owning one comes out ahead.

Just like cell phones. I pick mine up on eBay for very little, then I just purchase a sim card for where ever I am traveling. It also gives me the ability to loan them out to friends and relatives. As an example, last month my DD and DS went to Paris and London. She had her own European phone, but he did not. So, I was able to give him one of my phones and the Garmin GPS.

It would have all worked out great, except eKit, my phone SIM provider messed everything up on his phone, so he had to buy his own SIM (I'll be writing a scathing review on eKit later). That way when he and his sister got separated, they could still stay in touch. She has been to Paris and speaks French. He had not and does not. The GPS allowed them to preload locations and made it very easy for them to get around both cities.

dave

Do you plan on using it again? How big of an area does the gps map cover?

If it's a wash, then I'd get the map.

oooh - good point about pre-loading locations. In theory, I could put in all the destinations before we get there. That would probably be a benefit.


good thoughts.

Lsky, I will use the GPS locally - so the only incremental cost is the cost of the map. We are going to Norway and Sweden, and the cost of the Nordic maps is $69. The cost of all of Europe maps is $99 - I'm not sure I would count on being able to use it another year, so I'd probably only do the Nordic maps.

To rent a GPS is usually $10-$12/day or about $60/week, so it is a virtual wash by the time you add the taxes onto that base cost.

HUGE benefit to take your own!

1) you already know how to work it

2) you can pre plan routes and add in
literally 100s of Points of Interest ... for example you can tell with a tap of your screen where all the hotels of a certain chain are... or where the nearest bank is that has an agreement with your home bank re ATMs... or any one of
hundreds of other useful things no map can show you.

3) the GPS map will be up to date... who knows about a rental

4) if you can get a new map for $69 it will
cost the same or less than a rental.

Even if you didn't own your own already I think
it's worthwhile to buy one before going. I have been lucky enough to drive thousands of miles in Europe over the years and did just fine with paper maps. I used a GPS in France for the first time in 2008 and wouldn't even think of driving without one again.

We always use our own. It's a Garmin Nuvi and my husband is familiar with it so he doesn't have to try to learn a new one on the fly. He can make sure all the settings are the way he wants them. He also preloads all of our hotels and any other stops we plan to make.

Once we get a new map of Europe, we can figure on using it for a couple of years. There may be a few little changes, but not enough to make the loaded one unusuable.

We use our own as well, a Garmin, which came preloaded with European maps. It was our own Fodorite Robespierre, may he rest in peace, who recommended this one a few years back. Miss that guy...

Would definitely agree that it's a good idea to try to load at least your hotels ahead of time.

We usually rent our cars from Alamo/National, and for the past few years, the cars have also come equipped with the GPS already. We've never paid extra for it.

Since we then have two GPS units, it's kind of fun to see which direction each one takes us. They don't always follow the same route. Oh, the names we call them sometimes...

Happy travels!

I'm taking my own (actually my granddaughter's) because at least two people in the car will know how to operate it, as opposed to NO ONE on the last trip with a rental and we got quite firmly lost in the dark trying to get back to our B&B in the countryside.

swisshiker,
I miss Robespierre too. The Auto Route program he recommended is the best $50 I ever spent. One smart guy.

We called our gps, "The lady in the box". We would actually blame her when we got lost, as certainly it wasn't our fault!

We will be buying our own gps for our next trip also. That is my husband's one request - gps. He doesn't care of he has to wear the same clothes every single day, as long as he has his gps he'll be happy.
Michele

Daveesl,

Oh lordy, I just got two eKits in the mail today for my cellphones. Spent the better part of an afternoon installing them, getting my US number, and programming in the address book. Now you tell me eKit may screw me up in Europe?!

Poop!

I will look forward to your scathing review. Is it to be a separate post, or will you tack it on here?

Was happy with the brand new Mercedes we rented in Lisbon which came equipped with its own GPS. Tried it out and didn't work. When we returned the car, we mentioned that it had not worked. "Oh it hasn't been programmed yet," came the response from the attendant.

Take your own!

Take your own, but take a map too. Sometimes it is fun to go off on a different route to the ones your GPS suggests. If you get lost map reading the GPS will always get you back on track.

My husband had booked a GPS for a hire car in France but they didn't have it when he arrived. He had no map either so struggled to find his destination, and struggled even more returning to CDG via the centre of Paris where he had to drop off a colleague. He nearly missed his plane.

sounds like the consensus is to take your own for lots of good reasons. thanks everyone for your comments and thoughts.


Now the dilemma becomes... do I just do the map of Nordic countries ($69) or do I do all of Europe ($99)?

Do I have plans to visit anywhere else next year ? No, no plans. But I DO like to travel and Italy is on the list. As long as I can find a way to pay for airfare for free, it become much more affordable, so... you never know.

I would get all of Europe, especially assuming you are getting the lifetime update version.

P.S. If you find

This past summer we ended up having to rent a GPS unit for two different rental periods, one in Bavaria and the other in Tuscany, because I foolishly forgot to bring along a major required component of my own Magellan Roadmate unit which I have used all over western Europe.

What we got, both times, was a Garmin unit and once I learned how to use it (and that didn't take long) I enjoyed having it, thought some of the features were better than my own unit, and some worse.

Yes, I think it is worth renting one if you don't have your own...makes things a lot SIMPLER and yes, I have back-up maps, and yes I think a telephone is better than shouting calls, etc.

P.P.S. Sorry about that-- it posted in the middle of me suggesting I'd like to find a way to pay for airfare for free too

The Nordic maps alone may be more detailed than those in the European maps, but unless you are planning some serious small roading and out of the way touring I would go for the European maps.
European roads don't change that much over the years, and you can probably update them for free, or not a lot of $$, should want to in a couple of years.

I'd get all of Europe as well. We used ours last fall in France and will be taking it to Greece in May.

We updated the maps last year and I was happy when it "recognized" addresses for 3 of our 4 hotels. I was afraid the spelling might be an issue with many places in Greece but, so far, so good. Can't wait to hear the pronunciation of the verbal prompts!

I always take my own Garmin with me. We have two of them. But let me tell you that in December, in Las Vegas, we rented a car from Hertz with their NeverLost system in it. We didn't ask for a car with it I guess the only car available was already equipped with one.
Anyway. Neither my husband nor myself was able to operate that system. After a while we just gave up.

So, if you do not know what system you would be getting I would take my own. Although I rented a car in Croatia in October with a free GPS, a Garmin, and it was easy.

You don't think you will EVER use it anywhere in Europe again?

It seems as though you go to Europe often enough to make buying the all of Europe maps worthwhile. Our Garmin came preloaded with Europe maps, and it has served us well; I would much rather use the unit that I am familiar with than depending upon one that comes with a car rental.

I would take my own as well. We were lucky enough to borrow my French sister-in-law's car last summer for a bit and it promptly led us the wrong way down a one way street in Toulouse to our hotel. The area is not well marked and luckily we were able to back out before any head on collisions Also, of course our unit was programmed for French so that could also be a concern for some trying to change the language choice on rental units. We called her "Carla" for the first lady with her wisp voice. Now my brother-in-law calls his Sarko so they can have a matched set.

Nukesafe,

I've used eKit for several years without a problem, until this year. I loved having the US/UK numbers and the prices were pretty much inline with others. Reception was fine, but I never needed their customer service until this past Feb. and it was HORRIBLE. They have lied to me TWICE now, ripped me off on a refund and yes the review will be in a different thread.

So, eKit works fine, as long as it doesn't mess up. Pray that it doesn't screw up the PIN number, as it will lock and customer service is absolutely NO help at all.

Another advantage to having your own is the ability to carry it with you and locate restaurants and sites while walking.

If you take your own, remember to change the settings to Kilometers if you are trying to keep tabs with the road signs and such. Also, when you come to Italy with it make sure you don't leave any parts of it in the car, and clear the residue smudge from your front windshield. Many a car gets broken into so people can steal the navigation.

sutekh, good reminder about km vs miles!

I'm paranoid about the residue smudge here -- I actually don't attach mine to the windshield, I use the sandfilled beanbag that has an attachment arm. Since we'll be carrying the GPS afterwards without a car, I doubt I'll drag that attachment along (or maybe I'll use it, but leave it behind to donate to the cause).

Judy, have you ever used it while walking ? I've never done that, but it is an intriguing thought.

I sometimes left the beanbag mount under the seat or if big enough, in the glove, while taking the GPS with me. Or if parking in a dark garage, just put it under the seat.

But I'm going to Sicily in June so it may be a challenge to leave any part of the GPS in the car while visiting sites.

Walking mode may use up battery. You have to switch back and forth between pedestrian and car mode though.

$99 for lifetime Europe maps is a good deal. Which brand offers that? Not entirely sure if the map updates are that important. Seems like the points of interest would be the part that would be most useful to have updated. My old Garmin couldn't find any Carrefour around Nice a few years ago, though some were listed under Gas Stations.

It is a big hassle to have to pack a GPS and all the cables and mount. But you never know what you get from the car rental co. I tried to rent a GPS for the Loire last year and they didn't have the car I wanted so they gave me a Volvo which had a built-in GPS. Well the menus were in English but that didn't have turn-by-turn voice directions. Just on-screen prompts with a split-screen which was nothing like any other GPS I'd seen. Took awhile to get used to it.

We don't take the beanbag, just sort of let the GPS sit on the console or hold it if making lots of turns.

We plug it into the cigarette lighter while on the road and when we leave the car, I just put it in my purse.

We have used the pedestrian mode (which only takes the push of one button in "settings"....but must remember to change it back!) in big cities. We've been to Paris 15-20 times and think we know our way around. We were looking for a particular restaurant and couldn't find it. We turned on the Garmin and found that we had made a wrong turn and it was 2 blocks in the opposite direction. We don't leave it on all day so battery's never been a problem.

Trying to come back and update on some threads -

we used the Garmin 1490 - I uploaded the European maps for $99. I decided to get all of Europe in case we go somewhere next year : )

Overall, I would give it an A- or B+. There were a few times when it couldn't find my destination or even the city we were trying to get to, but I was able to work around that. Overall, it was just fine and was able to get us where we needed to go.

One thing I did learn is that sometimes the "attraction" is in English and sometimes not. So you may need to know the original language translation to be able to find it.

It also tried to send us to a unpaved parking lot and tell us it was the 'final destination' for a hotel (that was listed!). It WAS confusing, and I ended up calling the hotel from the bottom of the hill for directions.

One other quirky thing -- we went through many tunnels and we'd be fine with it -- tracking along. After we popped out of the tunnel, we'd get "satellite lost" almost immediately. It needed a 30 second delay to allow the GPS to find the satellite before it told us we lost reception.

I would use it again rather than renting. I did like the fact that I knew how it worked, where to find things, etc.

You are doing everyone here a real service by updating your threads after the fact. THANK YOU!

Thanks, surfmom, for the final report! Glad to know it all worked out well for you.

Those tunnels can be problematic indeed, especially if - when coming out of the tunnel - you are faced with a roundabout or a q

what happened there?? Oh well.

continuing...

..or a quick exit you didn't know about.

Again, thanks for the update!

Thanks for the advice to my redundant posting yesterday.
I now want to get this straight regarding taking my new Garmin Nuvi 1490LMT.
I need to first buy a new microSD card (does size really matter?????) and then download the France maps from the Garmin site.
I can then pre-program the POI etc from home-here in Canada?
Can I also do this on the fly in France?
Am I also entitled to free lifetime updates for this downloaded map?
Thanks in advance.

You don't necessarily need to get a new microSD card-- you can download the maps directly onto your GPS (from a computer, using a USB cable). If you don't have enough room on your GPS then you could instead buy a microSD card that has the Europe maps on it.

When you are shopping for the maps you will have a choice whether to buy the maps that come with lifetime update or not (the lifetime update maps usually say something like "numaps lifetime update"). It looks as though right now on Amazon the lifetime update maps cost around $20 more than the maps without an update. Even if you get maps without a lifetime update, you can check to see if there is a free one-time update on Garmin's website.

Once the maps are installed you can access them just as you would other maps (except for some reason you can't simply "send" google map information in Europe from your computer to your GPS, but if you need to you can always enter lat/long by hand).

Re adding POIs etc while in France... yes, but you'll need your laptop.

To download updates, POIs etc for my TomToms I need to connect via computer with the GPS plugged in via USB.