Thanks Knickerbocker- will tell my dh about the google earth function that you described. It will be fun to see where we've been on this earth of ours.

Evelyn

Yeah but older units reception in cities like Paris or Venice could be dodgy; my own experience in Paris validates that. But as I said earlier, that was with older technology and there's been great improvements in the gear so that lack of clear line-of-sight isn't the issue it used to be.

It gives you a different take on things,Efoss3. Especially interesting if you're going through places where people've taken the trouble to create 3D recreations of buildings.

BTW, yk. I just did a test with my nuvi750 and got 5 hours from a full charge using the power-saver mode. If you're going to be visiting museums/galleries/tourist attractions of various types, you could probably do even better by turning it off indoors to save the battery

I like the 3D google function with the little yellow guy that you can drag around.
5 hours sounds like plenty of time to me. Time will tell.

Hi LongLegs,

No, you're not crazy. I wish I brought my GPS with me.

I like stfc's suggestion about using both the GPS device and paper maps. It's enormously more enjoyable to be able to see the "big picture" of a city when travelling and planning your day. At the same time, it is helpful to have the GPS for navigating, especially in cities where language may be a problem.

djkbooks
"The quality of maps/directions depends entirely on what is provided by YOUR municipality to Navteq."

Are you suggesting that there is something I should/could do personally to correct this problem? I really doubt that in this rural part of Vt Navteq goes to each small town individually for directions and maps. They must be getting information from the state.

In Athens Most of the streets you will want to walk on will be narrow, so I wonder if your gadget will work there. And certainly, the most fascinating walks are random ... take a paper map along anyway.

It's the journey, not the destination, anyway, unless you are a total Type A personality.

We saw a guy walking around Venice with a GPS. He was totally lost!