Campervan - Garmin Sat Nav

[Cameron1960]

Im considering buying a Garmin LMT 600 (its a sat nav specific to Campervans / Motorhomes). It also has ACSI campsites pre loaded onto it. Has anyone got one (or alternatives). Is it with buying (approx £230)?

 

[2into1]

I wouldn't have thought it's worth it. You don't need a Motorhome route in a Cali. They usually are treble the price.

 

[Meoncoast]

basic Garmin or tomtom under £100 in my view as well works fine for Cali (I bought a very cheap sat nav off ebay don't bother will un known brands)

 

[ArunAlec]

basic Garmin or tomtom under £100 in my view as well works fine for Cali (I bought a very cheap sat nav off ebay don't bother will un known brands)

I agree. Recently bought a Garmin for about £70 (sale price). Apart from the battery not holding a charge very long, it's excellent.

 

[Californiaman]

I've got a Garmin Nuvi. The live traffic warnings coupled with automatic rerouting work amazingly well.

 

[sapto]

I did fancy one of the garmin gadgets (the one with the internal dashcam) - only to find out my (i)phone with an app (scout) is great too. Maybe not cheaper but one device less...

 

[TwentyOneThirtyFive]

All you are really paying the extra for is:

1. Planning routes avoiding size and weight restrictions. Not required for a Cali.
2. The campsite POI files being pre-loaded. You can download most of these for free off the net and loading them onto your SatNav is usually quite easy.

The ACSI ones are available from here I think. He doesn't advertise ACSI because of a copyright dispute (the name, not the data): http://www.archiescampings.eu/

I've also loaded my TomTom with various others, such as C&CC club sites, LS and CLs, wildcamping sites, pub stopovers, drinking water taps, public toilets, NT, RSPB reserves and so forth.

hth

 

[SimonB]

Another vote for the standalone SatNav. Very easy to update the maps, new one every 3 months, as you just plug them into your PC. Start up time is faster, if you do this regularly, as part of the update is the location of the GPS satellites so it knows where to look.
As Californiaman said, the ones with the live traffic are excellent and can save you ages in traffic jams. With the socket on the dash next to it, the cables are short and neat.

 

[2into1]

I agree with all the above but should add my basic TomTom only gets used when my phone can't get a signal. If I have a data signal, I use Google maps which has cleverly synced all the places I've previously researched using Google. Google's traffic info is amazing, and free.

 

[WelshGas]

Im considering buying a Garmin LMT 600 (its a sat nav specific to Campervans / Motorhomes). It also has ACSI campsites pre loaded onto it. Has anyone got one (or alternatives). Is it with buying (approx £230)?

The whole point of the California is that it can go where cars can go. Why would you wish to restrict yourself to travelling with the HGV's. As has been mentioned POI data for all the major campsite organisations is freely available in virtually all formats.

 

[MattBW]

If you have a smartphone just try Waze, great free satnav.

There is talk of a height restriction feature soon too.

The garmin you talk about was recently on sale in Aldi for £120 too.

 

[AndyFromTheBrac]

You can also get the (somewhat bewildering) array of ACSI apps on your smart phone for about £10 subscription per year. If you don't want another gadget on display, use my little guide to mirror your phone on to your head unit over here

 

[CYCLOPATH]

I have an RNS 510 that has an aux in jack and Bluetooth connectivity
I had thaught this was only for audio. Can I also link my iPhone screen eaisily??y

 

[briwy]

You can add any POIs that you want onto the RNS fairly easily. There's a "how to" in the downloads section.
Works well.

 

[AndyFromTheBrac]

I have an RNS 510 that has an aux in jack and Bluetooth connectivity
I had thaught this was only for audio. Can I also link my iPhone screen eaisily??y

Yes, the standard aux-in on the RNS is audio only. There is a FrankenAdapter available for it (in Germany) which uses the TV-in, but it was about £125 (and complicated to obtain from these guys https://www.kufatec.de ) so I gave up.

 

[kave]

I would say there are reasons to use a dedicated garmin unit even though you also have an iphone. When travelling abroad you always have free trafic information (for garmin units with free traffic data from the radio). Using data outside your home country is usually quite expensive. Also, when on a call etc the garmin still shows navigation instructions.

 

[CYCLOPATH]

I use 3 , as data abroad is the same as in uk, 1 p a megabyte, or included in your package