[T2] travailing out to CA again & GPS systems

[Mike Benthin]

Garmin can't find a lot of places by name- I don't have it in front of 
me, but there are "Points of Interest" files that can be upoaded to the 
Garmin (stick a 4g sd card in its slot for overflow memory).  Google POI 
files and these have been created for campgrounds, etc.  These can also 
be inserted into Streets and Trips as pushpins.  TYhey are just excel 
files with coordinates and names. Then a search on the HGarmin will 
find them.  Me, on the road I use the laptop with Streets and Trips to 
get an overview of where we will in X hrs be to find a campground or a 
Walmart to boondock at.  The GPS finder usb'ed to the laptop shows right 
on Streets and trips where we are, a much better overview than the 
Garmin when you tap it for a map view. A campground Book or Google maps 
if you have a smartphone will help to find campgrounds near where you 
are going, then look them up for an address in the book or get 
coordinates in Google by right clicking a street in map view and then 
select "What's here" The coordinates whill be shown in decimal form and 
you can enter it into the Garmin under "Coordinates" in the search 
options.  I think under coordinates it allows a formatting of styles 
lijke degrees, minuetsm, seconds, but you want decimal. It then uses the 
decimal system for entering NS followed by EW (we are west) to 5 places 
decimal.  Before hitting go, hit next or save to name the coordinates 
which will be saved to favorites.  We did this for all the places we 
wanted to go before a trip which made navigation easy.   Usually Streets 
and trips will show the address also when you enter the coordinates, and 
you can follow along (as the passenger) to warn of streets or forks 
coming up, or POI on the way.

Kevin Guarnotta wrote:
I've tried my address
and a couple different state parks we are planning on visiting - but it
can't seem to find them. I am thinking that I'm missing some really basic
thing - but I can't quite figure out what that is.