Bottom line: I want to buy my wife a GPS car navigation type unit.
Reason: Wife travels frequently to Anchorage (from Juneau), and she's out of state about 8 times a year. I like to go along or meet her when her business is finished on some occasions. Just saw Phoenix, Sedona, Flagstaff, Meteor Crater, Grand Canyon, and Avalanche -vs- Coyotes all crammed into 4 days. Awesome times when you can do it cheap and get back to work quick like.
Why I don't already know: I live in Juneau. We only have about 60 miles of highway and car GPS is a little overkill if you've lived here more than a week. Granted I use my old MAP76 with bluechart all the time to navigate my boat, hit my favorite halibut humps, watch out for hazardous rocks, seek out a king salmon shelf by contour, or anchor at a favorite little cove knowing that the giant exposed boulder during low tide at 1 AM is out of harms way. I just haven't had a chance to play with these car nav units.
Problem: So far I've only looked at the Garmin stuff. Everything I've read thus far about their "City Navigator" map software is that you can either buy :
"NA Lower 48, HI, PR etc." (explicitly stating that it does not include Alaska)
or
"NA Canada" (including Alaska and northern tier 48-States)
I feel a bit alienated from USA, and don't want to drop an extra $60 for the coverage of both US-48 and Canukistan-AK.
What about other manufacturers? Anybody use one in AK and America?
Mine is a Garmin nuvi1490 w/lifetime map upgrades
Added topo of my area to maps that can be added to many Garmin hand held models.
It fits nicely in an HP48 case.
Before this model, I used a Garmin GPS III Plus
May want to look at the Magellan Car Nav models, They used to come with all the maps pre-loaded, North America, Alaska, Europe, etc. Plus, you did'nt have to buy the yearly map updates. I used to work at Ashtech/Magellan so I had lots of their units to sample, play with.
I am sold on the Garmin Nuvi. The next one I buy will have the lifetime map updates, Lane assist, and video input for a backup camera.
Being in East Texas, I don't know anything about the maps in Alaska, other than it's up on the other side of Dallas a ways.
James
+1 on the Magellan
I have used several models of Magellan for 5 years or so and they have been bullet proof. At a point it becomes cheaper to buy a new unit with updated maps than to buy the map upgrades separately.
My Garmin Nuvi 350 has maps for all 50 states. It has been working great for about 5 years. I did have a problem with the maps that were 3 years old in Pittsburg last fall. They had changed the name of the roads, but I got a lifetime update and it is much better.
The thing I like about the Garmin Nuvi, is you can input Longitude / Latitude coordinates, which is very helpful here in rural PA. Perhaps other brands do this as well, though I've been told they don't all have that capability.
If you're really looking for something nice, Kenwood has Garmin nav built in to their head units...much cleaner than the external windshield mounts...though they do run about $1000.
I've had a number of them. I like the Tom-Tom best. Probably because it's the last one I purchased. It does have all fifty states. I used it in Hawaii and it worked great. Haven't taken it to Alaska. $79 makes it almost a no brainer. Also you can download all of Europe and parts of other continents. I use it a lot to just check my speed-it will tell you the speed limit of the road you're on and how fast you're going. When driving in areas you don't know that is really helpful. I find it best to preload all the places you're going to on your trip, then you can navigate to them with less button pushing.
Thanks guys. I'll check into the Magellan units, although the Tom Tom seems pretty inexpensive and simple to use. Simplicity is the key here.
I do like the lane assist of the newer nuvis, just a little concerned about garmin's Alaska coverage. I can google garmin maps for Alaska and find one product that offers "verified road coverage for Alaska". Although that map product has been discontinued.
