Re: Tip for GPS users

Tom Potter wrote:
Here is a tip for GPS users.

1. Before you travel to a new place,
use Google Earth to mark places of interest,
like your hotel, local sites, Taco Bells, etc.

You can use wikimapia, http://wikimapia.org
which already has over a million places tagged,
to quickly find almost all points of interest anywhere in the world.

If you load wikimapia from Google Earth with the "ge.kml" file,
you retain all of the functionality of Google Earth.

2. Save the markup as a KML file.

3. Use the free program "gpsbabel"
to convert the GoogleEarth KML file to a Garmin GBD file,
or the file type accepted by your GPS receiver.

Since there are several hundred manufactures of GPS receivers
besides Garmin, the user may need other approaches to enter
waypoint into the GPS receivers.

See: http://edu-observatory.org/maps/waypoints.html




4. Use another free program "g7towin"
to copy the GBD file to your GPS as waypoints.

5. If you have a map of the place,
also copy it to your GPS receiver.

Then after you get to the new place
and obtain a fix with your GPS receiver,
you can display the "nearest waypoints"
and navigate to the places of interest.

This will keep you from being overcharged by taxi drivers,
and it will alert you to places you want to see that are nearby.

I have been to many places, and didn't know until later,
that a place I wanted to see was near where I was.

I trust that Sam Wormley and Neil Ashby
will find this tip useful.

.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: Tip for GPS users
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  • Re: Tip for GPS users
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  • Re: Tip for GPS users
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