Your own routes on a sat nav

[garstead]

I've been looking at sat navs for a while now and read lots of opinions about which types people prefer.
The main priority for me is to be able to easily load routes so that I can drive the roads I want to, not where the sat nav wants me to go (uk & europe).
Which is the best/easiest to use in this manner?
Is it difficult to programme routes?

[TonyHetherington]

Hi

I have a TomTom and use, generally, Microsoft AutoRoute (or the Garmin MapSource software, ironically) to create an "itinerary".

Indeed, we're going on a trip this saturday (wahooo) around Europe, 3k miles, and the route was created on Garmin MapSource, then using this program ( http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a... ) I converted the file into an itinerary for my TomTom (and shared it with friends also going on the trip).

You create an itinerary by specifiying waypoints, i.e. points that you are forcing the satnav to go past, which forces the route.

The big question is Garmin vs TomTom. I use a TomTom and find the interface very good, but I have a friend who uses Garmin (who created the routes for our trip) and he thinks his is great also - so it really comes down to which unit you prefer.

Hope that helps

[TonyHetherington]

Oh, I should say that before this (5yrs ago when I first bought the TomTom) you had to do it all on the unit!! So, many many MANY hours of a broken neck sitting on the sofa looking down at the unit are thankfully a thing of the past now - you can pretty much do it in any map software and convert it using the program I linked to above.

[garstead]

Thanks for the link Tony, I'll give it a try and use it on one of the garmins at work.
Gary

[DIW35]

The only Garmins I am aware of that support itinerary type routes are the 760 and the Zumo 550 (and possibly the 860).

Cheaper models only support a single waypoint between your start point and destination.