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Merry Christmas all.

Can anyone steer me in the direction of a really good Sat Nav set that will do the job on our 6 month tour of Europe. We are off in Jan and would welcome any advice on the best to buy. We will be caravanning. Do they show campsites???

Thank you

Immac

It all depends. You can get POI's (points of interest) for campsites, speed cameras, McDonalds!!!! Most of the value Sat Navs don't give you comprehensive European mapping but you can usually buy the full maps at a price. I think I am right in saying that TomTom 700 includes full mapping but at a higher cost so just check carefully that its what you want. You might be better off buying the ACSI CD/DVD ROM disk that shows most campsites in Europe. I don't think a Sat Nav will help you choose a campsite, it will only tell you one is nearby!

David 

Immac

I used Navman V2 this year in Europe.  The updated version still has some glitches and will send you off in the wrong direction very occasionally.  So you can't throw away the paper maps - better keep them to hand as well.  One big problem with Navman (and some others too) is that they cannot distinguish whether or not a road is suitable for a caravan.  It took us on to a canal tow path in Holland with the caravan in tow and no way of turning - it was interesting!  When they get it right they do a great job, when the get ot wrong they are really wrong.  Navman works quite well by insering postal codes for the general area but you will need specific details to the camp site at times.

Walter

Hi Immac, the MIO 269 comes with full street level mapping for Europe. It includes many campsites as POIs, some in quite obscure places. It also has a free external aerial for use when surrounded by tall buildings or mountains. The built in aerial works fine for over 99% of the time. I wouldn't be without it.

Some SATNAVs only have UK maps and you have to buy additional maps for Europe. As David said the TT700 has all the maps, I'm not sure if you have to buy an external aerial if you need one.

Too late!!! I missed the bus.

I just did a search on Google and the Garmin Street Pilot 3 is discontinued. Just looking through the rest.

The Garmin Street Pilot i3 is on sale in Maplins at just under £200 with an extra £15 off if you subscribe to their newsletter.

Phil.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=48004&TabID=1&source=1&doy=22m12 

I've a Garmin Quest which is excellent but like all the others can give you funny routes occasionally.  Although all of uk in great detail is preloaded together with main routes in Europe, you need to use a PC to download the detailed info for the Euro areas you're going to if abroad.  This is quite easy to do and you can ditch the uk detailed stuff for the duration of your hol, or just maintain a corridor or corner of UK if you need it for the journey to the port.

Reload after the hols.   It was £340 last year but probably much cheaper now.  There's great deals meantime - check google.  Halfords had good offers recently.

Good luck 

i immac

i have a sat nav it works grate in uk and euro went on holls to france took us around paris to loire from calais to campsite' it is a navigon mobile navigator 4 with uk maps and northern ireland with 450.000 miles of roads 26.000 town centres more then 74.000 useful addresses. no campsites put address inn it will take u ther if you go wong it will put you right.map display with realistic images of crossroads and arrow symbol displays as well as many more customizable functions (e.g.3-d view speed display compass -precise voice direction with announcements of major roads and motorways.professional route planning with any number of intermediate destinations routes can be saved for repeated use .exact calculation of position by GPS with automatic recalculation whenever you deviate from planned route

if you got one i will put the maps on sd memory card for you .just sand me the card i have all maps of euro

 top dog for money  

 i paid £280 with maps in jan 05   halfords now £175       www.navigon.com

by ste tat           

NavMan iCN650 which has a 2GB memory and all of western & most of central europe already installed.

Watch out for those which require the compact flash memory cards, as I heard that France was 1Gb alone!

we got this model on eBay last summer before we left for £525, it was £800 at Halfords at the time. I see it's down to around the £500 mark now.

Very clear, and took us from Calais all the way through france to near Santander. It has the added benefit of Points of Interest (POI) such as garages/camp sites etc - handy if your tired and want to get off the road.

It also has a 'back on track' facility, so rather than telling you to do a U-turn with nearly 40 feet of kit, it re-calculates your route for you.

Happy hunting!

Woolies are doing the Garmin i3 that scorpio69 rated at a good price - £145 dont seem too bad

Scorpio69 - is this the same model

http://www.woolworths.co.uk/ww_p2/product/index.jhtml?pid=50502165

Thank you all for your replies, all really useful stuff. We hope to choose one at the weekend. Life is now in boxes ready to go into storage. Himself retires today after 45 years and after a bit of a "do", we are heading off into the rain, sleet and snow in search of a new adventure. Our plan is to travel for 6 months then maybe rent in France for a while. Who knows and we don't really care. Life in slow motion!!!

Once again thanks for all your replies.