Garmin basecamp

[booster]

We have been using Microsoft Streets and Trips for quite a few years to plan our trips and navigate while on the road. It has been nice because you can plan on the computer and then navigate from the same laptop and get the exact route you desire. It also recognizes when you are off route, and then back on, so it continues navigation without having to stop and tell it you are where you want to be.

That said, the latest version has gone downhill. The voice commands overlap so you can't understand them, the maps are out of date, and drag and drop routes work, but picking points takes you who knows where.

We have used some of the GPS units in the past and found them very, very, very, cumbersome to program custom routes. You could enter a bunch of waypoints on the laptop, but when you transferred them to the gps, it chose different routes between them than the laptop. They would also incessantly insist you turn around if you missed a waypoint, unless you stopped and removed it from the program, in a many keystroke procedure.

I downloaded the Basecamp software from Garmin, that claims to allow you to program custom routes, but I can't tell anything because you have to have the maps from your GPS to make the software work, it appears. If it does as claimed, it sounds like it could be a possible option, but I don't see any way to test without many hundreds of $ to buy hardware and maps.

Our goals are pretty basic. Program a route on the laptop, load it to the GPS, and go. Not rocket science, but most GPS want to use their route, not ours.

Anybody have any experience in Basecamp and custom routes?

[markopolo]

I downloaded it a while ago but never got around to using it.

[Mike]

I finally tried it, and I guess it would be a decent replacement for MSN's trip mapping software, although I'm going on what it could do based on the comments of others. I have never used S&T or Basecamp before.
I guess I'm thinking using something like Basecamp, to me, is like doing the Garmin's work for it. I'm happy using the nuvi in a much more ad hoc manner, and adding an occasional Via Point (which ARE ignored if you miss them, as I found out this afternoon), or a specific interest POI file, if we want to stop at something we've never seen before, and it's somewhere near our primary route.

So, I'm not sure Basecamp or similar route planning software use is in the cards for us any time soon.
It does look cool, and it's fairly easy to use, although there are still some things about that annoyed me, like having to drop the little hand to pick up the pencil, and stuff like that. Having to use the compass points and click to move the map while trying to find waypoints was also a bit tedious.
If you like that degree of detail in your trips, then it looks like a good trip planning tool. Lots of user defined and default options, for sure.

I do have an extensive "Extras" folder on my nuvi filled with lots of "Custom POI" files that I've gathered over the last 3 years, and coupled with the Proximity Alert" audible warnings, it sort of tells us when we're near something that might be of interest to us. I get most of that stuff from POI Factory, or directly from some commercial websites. Some retailers are actually clever enough to realize that if you give people a POI file with all your locations in it, that can be loaded into their GPS unit, they might actually find you more easily, and spend some money at your establishments.

[gordonhks]

I use Garmin Homeport for our marine navigation. It is very nice, but the users manual is virtually nonexistent. I can develop routes and then upload those to my Garmin 78 Chart-plotter. In order to do this, I have to have a copy of my map files connected to my MAC, via sd card or thumb drive, when I am creating the route. Then you connect the Nav device to the computer and upload them.

If base camp works as well on land as Homeport does for marine applications, then you have a winner.