Is there a free alternative to City Navigator 2010

[kbellis]

I've just purchased the Garmin Oregon 550 and am wondering: Are there free alternatives to the City Navigator 2010 or is that product the best route to take?

Thank you for any reply.

[maps4gps]

That is an open question; would help if you mentioned what you were looking for.
If you need autorouting, the most up-to-date street/road info (updated 4 times a year), and the most 'complete' list of places to stay, eat, service a vehicle, etc. - then CN (on DVD so you can use it with MapSource and add other mapsets).  The hydro is fairly general, no contours, and few physical feature POIs. 
Depending on your area of interest, download a State(s) or part of a regional mapset from here and see if it fits your needs.   Different map authors use different source data and process it differently; so be more specific on you needs and area of interest so we do not go off on something you are not interested in as alternatives to CN.

[Seldom]

There is a free routable map available for the whole world, but it has serious limitations.  See this thread:

http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=237345

The site is at:

http://garmin.na1400.info/routable.php

[kbellis]

Thanks maps4gps and seldom sn.

The POIs I can live without. And after seeing a few screen shots of the impressive looking maps that are available, I think I'll hold off shelling out more money for CN. Hats off and kudos maps4gps!!

Moagu et al looks fantastic and I'm looking forward to learning more on how to produce maps for the Garmin.

The educational need that lingers in this decision would be further investigation into the auto-routing aspects associated with OpenStreetMap. Thanks seldom sn for the links.

[Seldom]

Frankly, while OpenStreetMap is a noble effort, I wouldn't trust it to get me safely out of a bad urban neighborhood.

The only Garmin map I own is CN, but its a lot safer than the alternative.  It's around $80 at Amazon.

[Boyd]

I haven't them myself, but from what I've read, Garmin's 24k topo series also has fully routable Navteq roads and POI's. These maps are expensive - $100 for a few states and they don't have coverage for the whole US yet. But they might be worth a look.

BTW, MOAGU was originally created as sort of a "kludge" to put raster imagery on older Garmin GPS'es. The author has now brought us G-Raster which is what you have linked to. Haven't had a chance to play with it yet, but it looks very nice. I've been making maps in this new format myself using Globalmapper - you might be interested in some of these: http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/byuser/282/

Enjoy your new Oregon, Garmin really got a lot of things right on this series.  

[kbellis]

Hi Boyd,

Thanks for the reply and the link. I actually have already been checking them out; the Kauai and Acadia National Park maps (I live near MDI and work there often) - very nice work and kudos to you!

I'll for sure be looking further into Global Mapper, but at $350, it ain't going to be too soon.

Hi seldom sn,

I agree OSM does look to be a noble effort. OSM getting me out of a bad urban neighborhood would be less of a worry than it delivering me to one 

[maps4gps]

I did not mention OSM as I do not believe the US streets/roads have been updated with new yearly data from Census.  Last I read, it was 3 or 4 years old, when Census was just beginning to spatially realign the data.

[Seldom]

I did not mention OSM as I do not believe the US streets/roads have been updated with new yearly data from Census.  Last I read, it was 3 or 4 years old, when Census was just beginning to spatially realign the data.

OSM is based on Tiger data, but it is updated manually by users.  That's the reason I posted the caveats.  If you haven't checked out the link to groundspeak, you should.  They are cute. 

For that matter, even the latest Tiger data isn't all fully aligned. 

However, for limited or remote areas, gps, not Tiger, generated, the data might be pretty good. I know the trails I've uploaded there are reliable.