Cheap GPS for Europe?

[Enduro_Man]

I'm in the early stages of planning a driving trip around central Europe. I've been able able to navigate well enough in the past with Michelin maps and a compass, but I loved using the Garmin that came with my rental car in the States last year. I'm now looking at my car rental/leasing options, and the additional GPS charges are pretty steep. Steep enough that I'll consider buying my own unit, even if I'll only be using it for a month out of every year.

What's my best option for a basic, dash-mounted GPS with coverage of North America and Europe? Are there any European countries that aren't on the maps? (I don't plan on driving to Albania, but you never know...)

[Juste]

Here in Europe (at least in scandinavia where i'm from), you typically get the choice between a scandinavian model(Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark) and the european model at a higher price. Don't know if that's true for the rest of europe though. I think you are going to be hard pressed to find one with both US and Europe at a reasonable price. You can get extra map packages on quite a few models though. As far as i know, the european maps cover everything.

I bought a TomTom one 3rd edition with the european map package a few weeks ago. It was on sale at 180 Euro. I'm quite happy with it, although i don't think you can install exstra maps on this particular mode.

[Nellie]

I bought a garmin nuvi 250 (the basic model) specifically because it had coverage of all of western europe, claimed coverage started to go patchy once you hit Eastern Europe but it passed muster in Norway, Ireland, the UK and France.

Its places of interest stuff wasn't that great but for getting from A to B worked a treat.

[Enduro_Man]

Thanks for the feedback. In my searches, the only model I found with both continents preloaded is the Garmin nuvi 270, which sells for USD 290-400. Whether I can find someone to pick one up for me in the States before my trip is another matter. I suppose I could always pick up a nuvi 250 once I got there. (FNAC lists it for EUR 149.)

Might be time to resurrect Dave Perkins's Europe thread again...

[Hans Lauring]

I'm in the early stages of planning a driving trip around central Europe. I've been able able to navigate well enough in the past with Michelin maps and a compass, but I loved using the Garmin that came with my rental car in the States last year. I'm now looking at my car rental/leasing options, and the additional GPS charges are pretty steep. Steep enough that I'll consider buying my own unit, even if I'll only be using it for a month out of every year.

What's my best option for a basic, dash-mounted GPS with coverage of North America and Europe? Are there any European countries that aren't on the maps? (I don't plan on driving to Albania, but you never know...)


High end TomTom's (and perhaps) Garmins have both US and European maps. If not you can buy additional maps... but for gods sake do it while in the US.
A map of the US for my Garmin bought here costs more than just buying a new Garmin when I land in the US.

look up the actual mapproviders (TeleAtlas for TomTom and Navteq for Garmin) to find coverage - even though a device states it covers Europe the actual coverage varies form 25 to 40 countries. Also coverage of countries can vary a lot, like the map covering 99% of Danish roads but only 20% of those in Albania even though both countries are listed on the device as covered.

[Lum]

To be fair Albania probably only knows about 20% of their roads.

[Hans Lauring]

To be fair Albania probably only knows about 20% of their roads.

I didn't say there wasn't a perfectly logical explanation.

Just saying that when the box say "all of Europe" some consumers gets confused when countries or huge parts of countries aren't there.


Best GPS story I've heard yet, was the guy trying to drive from Denmark to southern France with his expensive Sony GPS and finding that even though his map pack included all relevant countries it was cut into sections, so no matter what he'd have to take a 2-4 hour break somewhere, fire up his laptop and install new maps.
(well the British road leading into a river which on all GPS maps is shown as a crossing probably takes the real first price)

[Enduro_Man]

Hanzii: Thanks for the info on map providers. From what I'm reading, Europeans and Americans seem to be divided pretty evenly between Tomtom and Garmin, respectively. Fortunately, it's turning into an easy choice for me, due to two factors: First, I'm used to the Garmin interface. Second, and more importantly, the Garmin 270 is $100 cheaper than any Tomtom with both sets of maps!

[Aszurom]

Derail: My wife's father is a truck driver. He really likes my Tomtom One, but wants something like it that also has the truck route info in it. What do I have to get to have trucker info on my maps? I mean, so it doesn't try to take your 18 wheeler down back roads and through no-trucks zones.