I just made a trip to the INDY 500 using a Tom Tom and either I am doing something wrong or there is a need for a different GPS. With the vast knowledge here I thought I would ask for opinions. The Tom Tom seems to want to send me to the closest Interstate no matter how many points I added on the Natchez Trace. I put waypoints all along the route to try and force it to create a route. No Luck - just had to keep driving and let it recompute the routes. So after completing the trip I made the route an Itinerary thinking I would save the route, the RV Parks and Fuel Stops and then be able to recall them from a list. Well when I started home I wanted to make second itinerary and save them both. Surprise! It wants to erase the first one and replace with the new one. I am growing weary of the Tom Tom and am looking for maybe a Garmin? I want to store multiple itineraries and Favorites so I can pick and choose - say Flying J's,Cracker Barrels, WalMarts and RV Parks. Am I wanting what is not available? Another peeve is when you zoom it is not zooming to the center of the map picture so if you start panning the screen it starts locating every point you touch. Basically I want to collect fast routes and scenic/historic routes and have them stored for retrieval depending on the time we travel. Any help is appreciated and I hope this is the right place to start this thread.

I never found a GPS standalone with all the reliable features I wanted. I use DeLorme's Street Atlas USA (and Topo USA) with its GPS receiver on my laptop.

This has had several advantages:

1. The screen is bigger
2. There are several options for placing POIs.
3. It'll save as many routes as you have HDD space for.

Gripes:

It sometimes chooses back roads over better routes, but there are ways to override its stupidity.

I've used it for over 7 years, and update every year.

I too have a TomTom XXL and having just finished 12000 km trip to Mexico and back I found that there was no way to drive directly!
1-- if you set up a route with a final destination it would go there in the straightest way or shortest way
2-- if you wanted to see the country you had to avoid toll highways and then you would be off wandering through the back roads and lanes and oft times making big sweeping arcs across the interstates and then meandering off down a lonesome road!
3-- we found that by just picking a destinationa thousand miles away it would go there using the interstates following trucks for hours on end
4-- we never could save a route and the next destination we planned wiped out the last one...
5-- We bought ours because it had maps of Mexico..however the are a few years out of date.We had to ask directions a few times
The USA maps are fairly good and in Canada we are building new roads faster that TOMTOM can update!!

We have a Magellin and it works very well. It is so detailed that it takes you to the correct parking lots in Disney World! It has the option of using all Interstate or no Interstate. Also the most direct route, shortest milage or shortest time. It is so simple even....
I won't go there.

About 6 years ago i bought a $1300 Magellan Roadmate 700 to use for a trip to the eastern half of the country. Things changed and we never made that trip and probably never will. Out west i usually know where i am going or want to go, so if i need to i just take a quick look at a road atlas. Anybody want to buy a Magellan cheap?

quote:

Originally posted by Shadow man:
About 6 years ago i bought a $1300 Magellan Roadmate 700...

Wow... these are now going for $45.00 to $179.00 new. Funny how prices dropped so far in such a short period of time.

quote:

Wow... these are now going for $45.00 to $179.00 new. Funny how prices dropped so far in such a short period of time.

Pretty much like anything electronic or related to a computer....

Just look at how expensive the first color tv's were when they came out.

They have TV's with COLOR?

quote:

They have TV's with COLOR?

Sure. My Tow Vehicle is burgandy color.

Rusty, they have these colored plastic sheets that you place in front of your picture tube to give you the color....red, blue, and green.

quote:

Originally posted by Shadow man:
Rusty, they have these colored plastic sheets that you place in front of your picture tube to give you the color....red, blue, and green.

Kewl! I'll look into it...

You guys joke about this, but we had a BW TV for so long that I was embarrassed because the whole neighborhood found out from my kid that we were depriving him of the joys of all the kids programs in color.

I shut up the loudest one though, because his kids had never had fresh fruit until they started coming around here. Come to think of it, they showed up a lot at dinner time, in general.

My children bought me a Rand McNally 7720 for Christmas any thoughts.

If you get lost and can't remember how to use it, just ask the NSA where you are.