Recommended Sat Nav/iPhone apps for Europe?

[defy21]

About to start my first touring trip mostly via the EuroVelo 8 but would like some kind of sat nav for directions on and off the route. Any recommendations for a dedicated sat nav or maybe an app?

Also any tips for this route? Cant see much information on anyone completing this Eurovelo route??

Cheers

 

[Lee_M]

how are you going to charge it?

a phone app will drain the battery like billy-oh. probably be flat after a couple of hours

a dedicated will last longer - more like a day

personally I'd take a garmin edge 800 with maps installed, and keep my phone as backup, but then again I would as I already have one!

 

[defy21]

I was going to use a dynamo to charge it but the Garmin method seems to be a lot better in terms of battery life, features etc.

Have you used it in Europe? Ideally dont want to use many main roads so maybe this would be the way forward?

 

[andym]

About to start my first touring trip mostly via the EuroVelo 8 but would like some kind of sat nav for directions on and off the route. Any recommendations for a dedicated sat nav or maybe an app?

Also any tips for this route? Cant see much information on anyone completing this Eurovelo route??

As far as a gpx track is concerned there's one here: http://www.biroto.eu/TRO1.php?route=RT00000415 compiled from OpenCycleMap - which is as good as anything I've seen, although I'm not convinced it's 100 per cent accurate. (It's a bit of a monster - the fist thing you'll need to do is cut it into segments).

There's a route description (in Dutch) of another version on europafietsers.nl

http://europafietsers.nl/web/ring4/Europafietsers_Nice-Venetie.pdf

For the Italian parts of the route you could bicitalia.org. (NB the pages may take a bit of time to load)

My impression (and this is just an impression) is that the eurovelo 8 is one of the less well-defined routes on the eurovelo network. so don't expect signposting - and in some places you may simply need to improvise as I suspect there is no official defined route.

For this length of trip I think it is considering getting a dedicated gps - my recommendation would be an eTrex 20, and then get a copy of the Open Street Map of OpenCycle Map in Garmin format. This is probably the best place to start: http://www.velomap.org/ - it may be worth considering paying for the premium OpenMTB mapping (which is still fairly cheap in comparison with the Garmin equivalents).

I'm sure there must be an iOS app that allows you to download maps and store them offline and then display a gpx track - but I'm afraid I've never looked very hard.

 

[bridgy]

I use the "navfree" app for sat nav on the iphone as it doesn't use data (particularly useful when abroad). It's actually pretty good and you can set the vehicle type as "cycle". The UK & Ireland version is free but you can download other most other European countries for £1.99 each so it's a cheap option. Earlier comment about battery is a good point though. You could always get the free app and give it a go here to see how you get on with it?