GPS Satellite Navigation
I had a few options here.
- Rely on ‘on the fly’ navigation in the phone using Apple Maps or Google Maps.
- Download a dedicated GPS Navigation App which also works on the fly.
- Download a dedicated GPS Navigation App with downloadable maps.
Here are the main differences between them and some of the challenges they create.
In the case of 1. you need to get a mobile phone sim car dwith a data allowance for it to work effectively. The apps start at free – Waze being a great example. This app has been bought by Google recently and it is crowdsourced.
It has amazing updates from other people who are driving around. It delivers realtime traffic, police locations and conversations with other Waze users. It is very cool.
When you are looking at an app with full downloadable maps, the cost can rise up to £50+. Bear in mind that the downloads can be up to 2gb and you won’t want to be doing that on a wifi hotspot, so you need to get this one done from home before you leave. Even then it will take some time to download, so don’t do it the morning you set off.
If you also want to use the smartphone as a camera, bear in mind you will need to leave space for the maps as well.
Tech Tip – If you want a fully enabled GPS Navigation app with downloaded maps, do this well in advance of your departure. You can’t test it until you arrive.
I took the risk and decided to use Waze and a couple of others as the apps with no maps are pretty small. When we arrived we managed to borrow a dedicated Garmin GPS unit and this was great, negating the need for the apps.
The car rental companies charge $10+ per day to rent one, so it could even be cheaper to buy one locally or take your existing unit and buy some US and Canada maps instead.
The GPS navigation enables you to do all sorts of things that you literally could not do any other way. For a start you can take detours of the main route to see stuff without worrying about finding the way back.