I use a program which is supplied free of charge by Garmin called "Base Camp", it runs on our lap top, and is a trip planner type program. Initially I found it hard work, but now have figured out how most of it works. And am finding it very good.
It uses the same map that's on your GPS, and allows you to plan day by day. It is very handy to see distances and travel times, and any stop, day etc. is changeable. You can enter co-ordinates and names, addresses and phone numbers, as well as comments to each spot.
When finished the trip can be up loaded into your GPS. Further the trip can be printed out and you have an extensive intinery of your trip for the passenger to follow. Printing the trip as a PDF file allows you to save your trip for future reference.
I find it handy just to keep a record of the km's travel in the van. So just letting you know it exists and is quite good to use. Much better than playing around sticking pins in a map of another program I know of.
That's right, the others when setting up the trip can view the trip segments on the big screen. Good to have one of you looking up free or low camps, rest stops, etc and reading out the co-ordinates.
I like plugging the Garmin into my computer and planning real trips in real comfort. After a trip round WA with two others who both had a Garmin in their car in preference to using their car GPS, I bought one myself. I used have 3 - one for my prior car, one for my wifes prior car, and one for my motorbike. The in-car ones are poor and costly to update. It was cheaper to buy a new Garmin that update my old one. So I actually bought one with a camera as my vehicle only had reversing sensors.
