We're traveling to Croatia (& Slovenia) next spring. I'd like to get DH a GPS for Christmas. It looks like there are lots of options out there and they all look the same to me. Can anyone recommend a decent system for use in that part of the world? Thanks for any info you can pass along.

I bought a TomTom One with European
maps on eBay before a trip to France.

Some of these things can be very pricey... the TomTom was just $130 including the maps.

My rationale in getting the TomTom
was that as they are a European it
would work better there than a non
Euro brand.

It certainly did work well and I can't imagine driving in Europe again without it.

Rob

Suffrock, we were in Croatia this past Sept and found our Garmin nuvi 670 invaluable in navigating Zagreb and Dubrovnik, which have full coverage. In Croatia, only the largest towns have this full coverage. Rural areas it did not work very well. The 670 is discontinued but still available, and pre-loaded with both US and Europe maps.

You should be clear that the "coverage" of a GPS is determined by the map set that is loaded in a unit - either at the factory or by the user - and by the software that displays it.

Any GPS unit that works correctly will display your latitude, longitude, and altitude anywhere on (or above) the planet. The good ones will show your location on a map.

The most important consideration in selecting a device is to make sure it embodies <b>SiRFstarIII</b> technology at minimum. Anything else is cheap, commercial junk.

we did well without one
ok
we did get a bit lost trying to find our way out of zadar back onto the highway but it wasnt baaaaaaaaaaaaaad
everything is well signposted
you cant take the car into the old town sections anyway
but hey
we are considering hiring one for our scandinavian trip
maybe
so ill stay tuned to what people have to say
just remember you pay the tolls upon exiting the freeways
and if you cross to montenegro you will need euros not kunas
and they get very grumpy if you dont have them!

I have the TomTom go 920. I like it a lot. They started selling the 930 model, so you can probably get a good deal on the 920 now.

I've heard good things about Garmins too. I think any model that ends with 70 (370,670,etc.) will have Euro maps included.

The key is to get one with Euro maps loaded. Sometimes paying to load additional maps costs more than the original GPS.

A GPS will save a ton of time on your vacation. I've driven often in Northern Europe without a GPS and did pretty well. After a trip through Italy, I came home and bought the TomTom and never intend to drive anywhere without it again.

We did fine driving all over Croatia &amp; Slovenia without one as long as we didn't have to find an actual address. Great for getting from town to town. I assume you're renting a car, so you can rent one with the car. Last year we did buy a Garmin Nuvi 270 or 370. Sorry I can't remember the #. It has a preloaded Europe map and got us from Germany tpo Austria to Slovakia to Poland to Czech Republic and foinally to Hungary with little problem. You still run into problems when there are detours. GPS aren't so good with detours. We bought it NEW on Amazon for half the price that any store wanted.

&lt;p&gt; I beg to differ... I found our TomTom was at it's best and was most useful when there WAS a detour!&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt; Coming out of Fontainebleau heading for Paris we found the autoroute onramp blocked by gendarmes... a few taps of the GPS screen by my daughter had us rerouted and into Paris without me even easing up on the gas pedal.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt; Without the GPS I'd have had to stop the car and figure out a new route on a paper map. We'd have still found Paris but a GPS makes things much less stressful.&lt;/p&gt;

I guess I need to learn how to reroute my Nuvi!

zwho,

My advantage was that the GPS was being operated by a 16 year old computer fanatic!

;^)