Getting lost while walking in Europe

I enjoy walking in European cities but even after lots of effort on
Google with maps etc, I often get lost when out walking.
Recently I purchased a GPS navigation unit for my car and am amazed
how accurate and helpful it is when driving in my home city.
I am wondering if anyone has had experience with a hand held unit that
could be loaded with European maps and tell me when to turn left, etc.
and "when I have reached my destionation" in English!
Any comments, recommendations or advice will be appreciated.
Thanks

Spencer G wrote:

I enjoy walking in European cities but even after lots of effort on
Google with maps etc, I often get lost when out walking.
Recently I purchased a GPS navigation unit for my car and am amazed
how accurate and helpful it is when driving in my home city.
I am wondering if anyone has had experience with a hand held unit that
could be loaded with European maps and tell me when to turn left, etc.
and "when I have reached my destionation" in English!
Any comments, recommendations or advice will be appreciated.
Thanks

I use an ipod- 'charge' it with the local map at a wifi point, and it
will then let you know where you are based on all the available wifi
points (whether or not you can connect to them.)

That said, if you're on vacation, surely it's fun to get a little bit
lost...

--
(*) of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate
www.davidhorne.net (email address on website)
"[Do you think the world learned anything from the first
world war?] No. They never learn." -Harry Patch (1898-2009)

Wolfgang Schwanke:


There are lots of softwares that can do that for mobile phones with
GPS. Some of those can work with Google Maps or OpenStreetmap, but
those want to be online all the time and they use up (possibly
costly) bandwidth.

Since a couple of weeks, Google Maps for smartphones allows for local
storage of the once loaded map selection.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/07/goo...ng-hallelujah/


Others can be preloaded with any map, either
scanned yourself or downloaded. I have some experience doing this
with my Android phone, and I recommend the free software OruxMaps for
that.

Correct. Navit or Locus offer similar functionality.



--
Erick

On 29 Jul 2011 06:08:13 GMT, Erick T. Barkhuis wrote in post :
:

Since a couple of weeks, Google Maps for smartphones allows for local
storage of the once loaded map selection.

Great, I didn't know that. Thanks
--
Tim C.
You know what's a dangerous insect? The Hepatitis B

Spencer G:

I enjoy walking in European cities but even after lots of effort on
Google with maps etc, I often get lost when out walking.
Recently I purchased a GPS navigation unit for my car and am amazed
how accurate and helpful it is when driving in my home city.
I am wondering if anyone has had experience with a hand held unit that
could be loaded with European maps and tell me when to turn left, etc.
and "when I have reached my destionation" in English!

In this case, I would indeed suggest using a smartphone with local
maps, either prepared from Google Maps while at a WLAN hotspot, or
using navigation software and OpenStreetmaps.

However, your car unit might well have pedestrian navigation or compass
navigation already. Modern GPS units offer these functions. In that
case, you just need to see if European maps for your unit are available
(and at what price).

Yet another possibility is the use of an outdoor GPS unit, like the
Garmin or Magellan units (which are used by geocachers).
Advantages a
- great for outdoor usage, rugged, waterproof, schockproof (a
smartphone is probably gone when dropped onto the pavement once)
- better battery life then smartphones
- OpenStreetmap maps available (free of charge)
- turn-by-turn navigation and compass navigation available
- excellent gps accuracy
- you might get into geocaching!
Disadvantages:
- a decent Dakota-20 costs about $250, the Oregon models even more.
- screen sizes are usually a bit limited

--
Erick

On Fri, 29 Jul 2011 10:35:33 +0200, Martin wrote in post :
:

On Fri, 29 Jul 2011 08:32:28 +0200, "Tim C."
wrote:

On 29 Jul 2011 06:08:13 GMT, Erick T. Barkhuis wrote in post :
:

Since a couple of weeks, Google Maps for smartphones allows for local
storage of the once loaded map selection.

Great, I didn't know that. Thanks

Lost in space?

Warning Will Robinson!
I knew Nokia did it, but last time I looked there was nothing for Android

--
Tim C.
I was in the butchers the other day and he said to me
"I bet you 10 quid you can't reach that meat up there".
I said, "No, I'm not betting, the stakes are too high".

In "Erick T. Barkhuis"
wrote:

Yet another possibility is the use of an outdoor GPS unit, like the
Garmin or Magellan units (which are used by geocachers).
Advantages a
...

Something not mentioned here is that a handheld GPSR can keep a
time-stamped track log of every step you take while wandering around,
which can later be downloaded to your PC.

There's free software available (the names of which I don't have
available at the moment) that can then match the timestamps from the
track log with the timestamps of your digital camera images and then
allow you to annotate the photos with your location at the time you took
the pictures.

The GPSR gets its time automatically from the satellites, while you'll
have to set the clock in your camera yourself. Just make sure they're
both set to the same time zone.

--
Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN

On 29 Jul 2011 in rec.travel.europe, Bert Hyman wrote:

There's free software available (the names of which I don't have
available at the moment) that can then match the timestamps from the
track log with the timestamps of your digital camera images and then
allow you to annotate the photos with your location at the time you
took the pictures.

The one I use is GeoSetter (http://www.geosetter.de/en/) (Windows).

The GPSR gets its time automatically from the satellites, while
you'll have to set the clock in your camera yourself. Just make sure
they're both set to the same time zone.

As long as the difference is consistent, you can tell the software what
time offset to use.

--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.org/
Email: http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe
Usenet Improvement Project: http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/

Spencer G wrote:
I enjoy walking in European cities but even after lots of effort on
Google with maps etc, I often get lost when out walking.
Recently I purchased a GPS navigation unit for my car and am amazed
how accurate and helpful it is when driving in my home city.
I am wondering if anyone has had experience with a hand held unit that
could be loaded with European maps and tell me when to turn left, etc.
and "when I have reached my destionation" in English!
Any comments, recommendations or advice will be appreciated.

I have a small Garmin etrex for hiking. No map--for that I prefer
paper--but I set a Waypoint at my start place to make sure I can get back
to it 8-)

--
Erilar, biblioholic medievalist with iPad

David Horne wrote:

I use an ipod- 'charge' it with the local map at a wifi point, and it
will then let you know where you are based on all the available wifi
points (whether or not you can connect to them.)

That said, if you're on vacation, surely it's fun to get a little bit
lost...


Agreed! I have a fair sense of direction, once I adjusted to the fact
that "around the block" in European cities meant circles, not squares!
(And of course, obtaining a map of the area from my hotel's concierge,
if possible, proved useful, too.)