Message Forums

Both!

You don't need to spend a huge amount on a paper version - many 'budget' bookstores stock Europe road maps for a few quid.

You can also make good use of the map websites before you go - print off a detailed map of the area near where you will be. Also a route map.

It is a cheap way of providing back-up if your 'toy' decide to have a flat battery, or doesn't work for some other reason.

We used both.  We have a PDA with prymenav on it and it is great.  We also have the tom tom software and loathe it.  Each to their own but having now had nearly a  year's worth of experience with it I have asked OH to delete  Tomtom permanently!!

We have just done 2000 faultless miles using Prymenav and we also plotted our route on mappy.com and printed it off and used an atlas too.  Have fun.

Ali

AA road atlas of France 2006 £4.99 from any cheepo bookshop. Buy the latest every year. Scribble in them. Highlight roads then throw it away and get a new one.

Carol

hi, i used my pda with built in gps, in france last month. i always take a paper backup. the maps can be up to 5 years old on the software and i did need to look at the map to sort out 1 problem. hope that helps.

floppy

Road blocks don't always show up on maps either

But as has been said use both

But don't forget to engage brain at the same time as sat nav

If the road sign says NO ENTRY it means YOU even if the sat nav tells you to go that way.

If you were using a map you would obey road signs but sat nav has a way of switching off that brain function.

Its a good idea to follow the site directions from a site book rather than sat nav.

Our sat nav is excellent but it still tried to send us through a pedestrian underpass near to the site in Brittany.

Fortunately we knew the area

we use sat nav, and a map as a backup.  When the sat nav has worked out the route, we scroll through to check it. If it is taking us a way that we do not want to go, we add some "via's" to bring it back to our way of thinking - we know that some autobahns are less congested than others.

Michael

Ditto Michael.  How was Austria?

Ali

You may want more than a road map.  For walking or cycling an Ordnance Survey map or equivalent showing contours, hills and off-road routes is the thing.   Not all GPS have that quality of mapping.

Ali, it was great.  We were very lucky with the weather.  Between 25 and 30 degrees in Niederau, and well over 30 in the Inn valley.  It stopped raining just before we arrived, and started after we had left.

Pleasant to walk in the mountains, as there is always a breeze, and hot enough to crash out on the patio.  Here is a picture of Cassie on our back lawn in Niederau, who despite being 15 now, still loves the hot sum.

Michael