Hi guys! Any recommendation for a free gps map for Australia? Which is the best one in your opinion? Greetings from New Zealand Panny
I'll assume your using a Garmin gps. You might try here: http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ Look under the 'Oceania' tab and select 'Australia', then enter your email address and click on 'Build my map'. Follow the instructions in the emails you receive. Do you have Garmin's Basecamp software installed on a PC? You should be able to view the detail OSM maps provide within Bascamp or Mapsource on a PC. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_Map_On_Garmin/Download daryl
Hi Daryl, I´ve tried OSM for several areas around the world and it was never really good. E.g. south america and NZ. Do you use it yourself for AUS? How is the routing? How about the POI-data-base (especially gas stations)? Greetings from NZ Panny
I've been using it for years. Depending where you are in australia, it ranges from the best available to completely empty (entire towns missing, etc). One thing I have noticed comparing it to commercial maps, is if something is on OSM then it really does exist in real life. Most other maps are full of roads that don't exist.
Never been to australia, but I sure want to go. I do use their maps to route me around my home state of Missouri. Its not perfect, but the price is right. Their no good for address searches. I didn't know you had already tried them. If you download their map of australia and look at it in Basecamp or Mapsource you should get some ideal of the detail. You should be able to do that for any map that you find. Here's another site: http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/ daryl
great find! i just downloaded the eastern half of australia and it was only a 30mb file. plus the file to install it on my pc for mapsource (30mb again). i've been using garmin topo maps aust & nz v.3 for a year now, and these free maps actually have a bit more detail for many of the state forests here in southeast qld than the $300 garmin maps. plus like the garmin topo maps you can still auto route on all bitumen roads and main dirt roads. for this reason i think it is better than the free shonky maps (although shonky and garmin topo come with contours if that is important). here's the link again, worth checking out imo: http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/
Thanks for the tip, but I prefer routable maps + a proper POI database. Shonkymaps has neither as I understand. Greetings from NZ Panny