Travel in the 21st Century

I was skeptical about “needing” a GPS. But because my wife (who has to do the navigating on vacations, a heavy burden) wanted to give me one for Christmas, we did some research. Finally, Consumer Reports magazine (October, 2007, Page 6) had a short review of units that confirmed our decision, and I bought a Garmin Nüvi 370 well before Christmas, 2007.

As far as touring European cities on foot, I can honestly say that this tool has changed my life. We go to Europe almost every year, and I’ve spent a lot of time glancing at maps to try and make sure we’re still on the right route. In cities with historically curvy and confusing streets, and not enough signs, this is a tall order. But with the Garmin, I can look around and enjoy more of the walk. Instead of holding a page in a book, I have a much smaller, lighter Nüvi 370 in my hand. As a matter of courtesy (and discretion – I don’t wear tee shirts with English words on them while traveling overseas), I muted the Nüvi’s voice prompts. But once you get used to reading the moving map, it’s very easy – perhaps easier than while driving a car, when you have to keep your eye on the road.

Many of the places you want to go are already listed in the database, so you don’t’ have to look up and type the address. You can select Transportation|Ground Transportation, and the nearest railroad and metro stops will be listed in increasing order of distance from your current location. You can select Lodging for a list of hotels, or various categories of tourist sights. I did have to learn that you don’t type in “South Dean Street”. You type in (using an excellent touch-screen keyboard) “Dean”, and if the town has only two streets that start D-E-A, both of them are listed before you finish typing. When you touch the right one, a new screen offers “South Dean Street” and “North Dean Street”.

The Nüvi 370 was our choice because it comes with Western European maps, as well as North America. You can always buy more maps, but it appears that the main difference between the Nüvi 370 and the highly-rated (Consumer Reports) Nüvi 350 is that the 370 comes with a Traffic Radio Receiver and the European maps. I should add that contrary to some online reviews, (and perhaps because our purchase date was only a few months after the 2007 database update anniversary), Garmin’s web site proactively offered me a free North America map update at the time I was registering my purchase. That’s an argument for registering, even if you don’t’ like giving your identity to a vendor.

Like most electronic devices, pricing is a day-to-day affair. When the Nüvi 350 was still at the top of my list, it looked like it was going to be available from a discounter for around $399. But when I ran across an Amazon partner who was offering the Nüvi 370 for $433 plus shipping, the decision was made. In fact, I’m very unlikely to pay for a subscription (!) to the Traffic Radio program, so that will remain unused. But the current price for the European map database is around $299. So it’s much cheaper to choose a unit that already includes the maps. Keep in mind that like cable TV and mobile phones, it’s clear the Garmin would like to make money forever by selling you updated map data. (I don’t say that to be nasty. It’s just a reality that eventually the map data in your Garmin will be obsolete. And they control the gateway to your machine.) I was a little nervous buying from Electronica Direct because I’d never heard of them. But their status with Amazon and their feedback reports gave me confidence. I paid for expedited delivery, and I had to prod them to ship, but they delivered the unit the day we were going to the airport in the evening.

If you can possibly look at a friend’s machine, you’ll avoid the surprise I had of how small the screen is. It’s just barely big enough to stick to your windshield and still read from 30” away. Of course avoiding obstructing your view, manufacturing cost, and middle-aged eyesight are all factors in this perception. But don’t expect your Garmin to look as big as a built-in screen in a car you once rented. It also takes at least 30 seconds to boot up and load the map data, and often another 20 seconds to acquire the satellites. I found that even a wood-frame house could block satellites, although by holding the antenna at the window, I could get data while riding a train. (The speed data in the car seem to be 100% accurate, so it must be true that my Eurostar train was going 184 MPH as reported by the Nüvi 370.)

One reason for choosing one of these two Garmins (there are lots of Nüvi 350 reviews on Epinions, and it’s very similar to the 370) is that they provide the street name in the verbal turn instructions, instead of just saying “Turn Right”. Note that not all of the “Voice” choices built in to your device may provide this feature. You can buy other voices, but I’m happy to settle for the American English Female that includes this feature.

There are a lot of options to set up, which affect your navigation experience, so be sure to explore the menus before you begin a real-world navigation in unfamiliar surroundings. Interestingly, when you fly from one time zone to another, the Garmin does not automatically change time zones for you, although you can choose automatic daylight-savings if you want. I suspect that “Shortest Distance” and “Fastest Time” make a big difference in how your routes are computed. I don’t have enough experience yet to comment on this.

In general, the navigation is excellent. I’m going to describe a disappointing navigation in detail, not because it made me hate the machine, but because it’s an interesting consequence of asking a computer to do something that people can usually do much better. (Kind of like a Spell-Check that doesn’t detect misspellings that look like other words, correctly spelled.) It’s not a fatal flaw, and I’m not trying to talk you out of buying a GPS, but you should keep it in mind. I took a trip on New Jersey State Route 4 that I’ve made a hundred times, exiting on Broad Avenue Northbound in Englewood. Route 4 grew up as a sleepy two-lane highway, so many of the intersections are not Federally-approved cloverleaf style or dimension. Now it’s a heavily-traveled route to the George Washington Bridge. The exit sign says “Grand Avenue-Englewood”, because 95% of the drivers want to turn north on Grand Avenue in the direction of Englewood. That is, the destination is given instead of the compass direction.

But the Garmin, correctly told me “In .4 miles, turn right on Rockwood Place”. In fact, I was really making a 90-degree right turn onto a 200’-long street with no name that connects Rockwood Place with Route 4. (If you think that sounds dangerous, it is. You can get rear-ended while slowing down in the right-hand travel lane of Route 4 to make this exit onto the non-existent ramp! That’s not Garmin’s fault.) After going 200’ more, I was correctly told again to “Turn right on Rockwood Place”. Now I was really on Rockwood Place. After another 800’, I was correctly told to “Turn Right on County 501”. But no one calls this street “County 501”, which is the same street as Grand Avenue. I’m relieved to say that there is a sign that says “County 501” at this corner. But as I noted, the exit sign on the highway says “Grand Avenue”, not “County 501”. The point is, the Garmin is correct, but does not match what a local human would tell you.

Incidentally, Google Maps and Mapquest both incorrectly show the 200’ connector as two parallel highway ramps. It’s really a two-lane local street.

When you put the Garmin in “Pedestrian Mode”, you’ll occasionally find yourself on a walkway that isn’t mapped, particularly if it’s a cinder or gravel path. Sometimes this confuses the Garmin, and it may try to re-route you. I need to get more experience with pedestrian-mode, which I assume means mainly that one-way streets aren’t taken into account. As I noted, I found walking routes in an unfamiliar city to be very helpful. But if you’re buying a Garmin for wilderness hiking, you should budget for the topographic database. The Street maps will still tell you the compass direction and your speed, but they may not tell you about the stream or cliff you’re headed for! They also offer Marine databases, at extra cost.

(Added after 2 months use)It has really been a pleasure to rely on at least a 2/10 mile warning of an otherwise invisible turn ahead. It seems as if turns are warned farther ahead when you are going faster, but it may instead be that the Garmin knows you are on an interstate, for instance. The update DVD-ROM (I had to borrow a DVD reader for my not-so-old computer) arrived within a few weeks, with no need to call Garmin. It took over an hour, on a Pentium 4 2.8 Gigahertz machine, to update the Garmin's U.S. Map Database. But of course, you don't have to sit with the machine while this happens. I suspect the update speed limitation is the data link to the Garmin, not the PC processor.

Although I know how to get to my wife's office in central New Jersey, I used the Nüvi 370 with the updated database. Alas, when I got to the U.S. Route 202 traffic light, at the four-lane street her company built, named, and ceded to the town many years ago (The point is, it's a public way; It's a jughandle for a left turn) it wasn't in the database. The Nüvi wanted me to drive another mile and, I suppose, make a U-turn at a shopping center light. Since I knew better, I used the jughandle turn and chopped 4 minutes off the otherwise very accurate predicted travel time. A disappointment.

(Added disappointments:) On the other hand, I had some experiences in places that I wasn't already familiar with, that weren't handled well by the machine. I followed a route to a hotel in downtown Philadelphia, which worked well. But as I heard,"Approaching destination ahead on left", I was actually on a boulevard with an island preventing me from turning into the hotel, and no left turns were permitted for several more blocks!

More irritating, when I was entering Philadelphia on the sunken Vine Street Expressway (I-676), I was instructed to exit on "22nd Street" for the Museum of Art. But the overhead signs did not mention 22nd street, so ignored the command. I was wrong. (The Nüvi 370 immediately said "Recalculating", and got me to the museum anyway.) Similarly, when I came home on the New Jersey Turnpike, I knew I was going to bear left some miles after paying at the last toll booth. The overhead sign says something like "To I-80 West". But the verbal instruction was "Bear Left On I-95." Now, that's technically correct, because I-80 doesn't begin for several miles. But if I'd never been there before, I'd wonder why that instruction sent me under a sign that didn't mention I-95, but the "Bear Right" road did mention I-95, which goes on to the George Washington Bridge.

(Added after 4 months use)The "Pedestrian Mode" is a revelation for visiting foreign cities. I'm used to plodding around with my head in a folding map or a Frommer's Guidebook. But with the Nüvi 370 set to "Pedestrian", and the speaker muted, I can glance down at the screen when I need to, and spend much more time looking around me. This is a special advantage in old cities that don't have a "rectangular street grid", which can require a lot of (paper) map study.

I was also pleased to find almost every "way point" I wanted already in the database. This included smaller museums and obscure sights not in Frommer's books. This allowed me to punch up the destination by name, and then chose the "Go There" button!

However, in cities with really tiny streets, the device has a poor view of the satellites, and it may flash "Awaiting Better Accuracy." In a city with arcades/loggia (I mean, like Bologna, or many older city squares), you may need to keep near the outside of the passages to keep in touch with the satellites.

(After 20 months) My Nüvi 370 became unable to pick up any satellites. (I want to note that it spends most of the time in a drawer, not on a dashboard or in a backpack!) Some newsboard research suggested that the antenna cable is very well-designed (twisted around the hinge, so it twists instead of flexing), and unlikely to break, even though the antenna has to fold out 110 degrees every time you set up the unit. I can't prove what actually went wrong, but many posters mentioned the antenna diode on the circuit board.

The flat-rate for repairing a Nüvi 370 at Garmin is about $225. But the street price is down to about $200! Some of those newsboard posters had negotiated the repair of their unit down almost to zero. I didn't argue very hard, but I only got the price down to $150. And they did give me relatively new maps with the repair (or swap for a reconditioned unit at their choice...). I chose to pay the money because I like the unit better than their newer, bigger-screen models. But the failure on a machine that has been treated with kid gloves was a disappointment.