SatNav

[Alan Gibson]

I have a Nissan X-Trail with satnav has anyone experienced driving through France one with a Caravan.

 

[Damian]

What experience do you want? are you worried about it working? or taking you down unsuitable roads?

If you use the major roads of europe, it will take you down the main roads, and French roads are much better than most UK roads anyway.

If you are not sure about a particular route, check it out with a paper map, or an on line route finder, such as the AA.

As with all SatNav, it will work very well, wherever you are, with the usual minor problems when in densly populated places with high rise buildings, tunnels, or forests.

 

[Alan Gibson]

Thanks for the reply I was unsure as to whether the maps for Europe were to the same detail as for the U.K in which it seems to work very well.

 

[Simon Burton]

I bought a Garmin unit at the NEC show in February and used it on a trip to Germany in April - final destination about 50 miles east of Frankfurt. Fantastic wouldn't go without it now. It was accurate all the way and even sends you around roundabouts anti clockwise. Going through France to Spain next week, routes and maps all loaded can't wait to go.

 

[Clubman1]

I have just completed a 3000 miles trip via Central Europe to Slovenia using Tom Tom Go! - brilliant. I used full mapping CD's for the majority of the journey and the Main Roads of Europe for Czech Republic. Not once did TTG let me down - although it didn't want to know beyond Villach on the Austrian/Slovenian border. Have no fears trust in the beast and it will get you there, but as has been reported above do keep an eye on the paper map for those narrower roads it may try and divert you on to. As I have reported previously with a motor mover and sat nav the wife is redundant, weel not wuite someone has to do the washing up!

 

[Mike_5041089]

Alan - let the (electronic) brain take the strain! we went to Switz at Easter and completed a 3000 mile round trip without one argument thanks to the sat nav. As others have said, double check the route with a paper map, especially for steep inclines, as no one yet has programmed "caravan friendly" routes, but if you stick to the main roads you'll be fine. Avoid the shortest route option and you won't go up any blind alleys. The only problem we had was being directed up an 8000 ft pass, only to find it was completely blocked with snow! When we checked the small symbols on the paper map we realized it was closed in April - luckily we were not towing, so were able to turn round and find another route.

 

[Alan Gibson]

Alan - let the (electronic) brain take the strain! we went to Switz at Easter and completed a 3000 mile round trip without one argument thanks to the sat nav. As others have said, double check the route with a paper map, especially for steep inclines, as no one yet has programmed "caravan friendly" routes, but if you stick to the main roads you'll be fine. Avoid the shortest route option and you won't go up any blind alleys. The only problem we had was being directed up an 8000 ft pass, only to find it was completely blocked with snow! When we checked the small symbols on the paper map we realized it was closed in April - luckily we were not towing, so were able to turn round and find another route.

Thanks for all the comments,I think I just needed re-assurance

Alan.

 

[petercoachman]

hi alan we returned from 3months touting france spain and portugal using our tom tom sat nav found it birilant so much easer than my dear wife taht we shuold have done a left turn at the junction we passed 10 miles back have a good time pete

 

[rob_jax]

Alan,

You asked if there is a difference between the level of detail with GPS mapping of mainland Europe:

Well there is and there isn't. If we take the popular TomTom GO "all-in-one" package as an example, you can buy this in three flavours:

TomTom GO 300 - with door to door navigation of the UK and Ireland. You can buy upgrade (door to door) maps already loaded on memory cards for you to swap over when you arrive in France.

TomTom GO 500 - with door to door navigation of UK and Ireland, plus major roads of Europe. This will take you from city to city anywhere in Europe, but it won't take you to a local road in a small town. Ditto buying specific detail cards for France to upgrade the navigation detail.

TomTom GO 700 - door to door navigation for the whole of Europe.

For the past three years I've been running the PDA version of TomTom on my iPAQ PDA, and have recently upgraded to TomTom 5 - which was supplied with door to door maps for the whole of Europe.

Robert