Sat Nav for driving holiday in France

greenplain

Hi,


I need some advise. I am heading to the South of France and intens to drive around there and also drive in Western Italy. My question is which Sat Nav would be the best to get. I dont want to spend too much (around 150 euro's) Will that get me some thing that will do the job ? or would I be better renating one from the car hire company ?


Thanks

stephenmarr

hi i did 3 weeks in the south of france last summer areound the collioure area.
i had a garmin 250w which had the european maps installed. this model was perfect had no trouble finding our apartment it pinpointed it directly. the roads over there are perfect diesel is a bit higher than here but you will get over that.

Wishbone Ash

greenplain wrote: »

would I be better renating one from the car

Renting would be madness as you'd have the price of one paid in about 10 days rental and would then have nothing.

danjo

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

Renting would be madness as you'd have the price of one paid in about 10 days rental and would then have nothing.

That is true but the more fundamental reason for buying one is that you will be familiar with the device before you travel abroad. The last thing you want is to be fiddling with a new satnav while trying to negotiate roads in a foreign country.

Satnavs are very easy to use but have a steep learning curve so get one and use it here on routes that you are familiar with so you will get a good understanding of the operation, oddities etc.

greenplain

Thanks for the input lads, I got the garmin 255 in halfords for €130, so I am sorted

stephenmarr

did you get the widescreen model? it makes viewing it much easier

Do-more

stephenmarr wrote: »

hi i did 3 weeks in the south of france last summer areound the collioure area.
i had a garmin 250w which had the european maps installed. this model was perfect had no trouble finding our apartment it pinpointed it directly. the roads over there are perfect diesel is a bit higher than here but you will get over that.

I'm just back from a week in that area, I was stayng in St Cyprien. The Garmin maps covered the area very well with some very small roads covered.
However my 250W navigated me on some very small single track (but tarmaced) roads in the area, even though it was set to "fastest route" rather than "shortest route" I can only assume that the speed limit was the same on these roads as on the larger two track roads in the area. It never got me lost but we did take some crazy routes! I only had this problem around St. Cyprien otherwise I had no problems.

Tolls in France can be quite high, e.g. we paid €9 from Carcassone to Perpignan one way, if your not not in a major rush the older non-toll roads are a good option, and you get to see a bit more of France rather than 6 lanes of Tarmac, ye pays yer money.....

Also I would suggest you have "U-turns" enabled otherwise if you make a wrong turn you could end up going quite a bit out of the way before getting back on track.

Anan1

Do-more wrote: »

However my 250W navigated me on some very small single track (but tarmaced) roads in the area, even though it was set to "fastest route" rather than "shortest route" I can only assume that the speed limit was the same on these roads as on the larger two track roads in the area. It never got me lost but we did take some crazy routes! I only had this problem around St. Cyprien otherwise I had no problems.

I found eaxtlly the same thing in Provence, some of the routes it brought me on were actually quite scary - basically single-car tracks channeled into the sides of cliffs with no barriers.

Rb

danjo wrote: »

Satnavs are very easy to use but have a steep learning curve so get one and use it here on routes that you are familiar with so you will get a good understanding of the operation, oddities etc.

Steep learning curve?

Maybe if your only interaction with technology thus far is with a fischer price laptop!

Anan1

Rb wrote: »

Steep learning curve?

Maybe if your only interaction with technology thus far is with a fischer price laptop!

It's quite easy to make mistakes if you haven't used one before - a prime example being checking the route on the nav to ensure that both you and the unit are thinking of the same town and not one on the other side of the country with the same name.

JJ

I just got a TomTom sat nav and find it very easy to use but I know that not everyone out there is great with gadgets. I was on a car trip with my dad and the wif and we were using a sat nav but didn't have it set properly at first. I was the one driving so I left it to my passengers to fix it. Both passengers I was traveling with couldn't figure out how to set it correctly after fiddling with it for about an hour so I pulled over to the side of the road and had it working properly in about 2 seconds.