Detailed 1:24,000 scale topo maps are available for most states in the US, as well as for some foreign countries. If you’re a Garmin owner and aren’t aware of all the free maps available for your unit, you’re in for a treat.
Want to be able to use the same unit for geocaching and for highway directions? The Garmin Montana series is for you. Free topo and trail maps for your Garmin GPS.
Or step up to the Oregon 550t to add a built-in 3.2 MP geotagging camera and pre-loaded topo maps of the entire U.S. For a big touch-screen, great interface, I recommend the Garmin Oregon 450. There are several choices here each offers paperless geocaching. I often see this model o sale for as low as $135.Īnother good option is the recently introduced Garmin eTrex 20, which includes a ton of new features. The Magellan eXplorist GC (seen at left) is a recently introduced model that includes extensive highway maps and paperless caching. The eTrex 10 currently runs a little over $110. But alas, you can’t load any detailed maps to it. Earlier topo mapsets from Garmin left alot to be desired. It was nice to navigate the forest roads via autoroute. Detail may vary by state however and since Montana was so poorly covered in Topo2008 the 24K was a huge jump in detail.
The eTrex 10 is Garmin’s new entry level unit with paperless geocaching capabilities, giving you the full cache description, recent logs and more, right on your handheld. It is the only place that dataset is available and Garmin included it in the 24K mapset. By the way, all the units below have a high-sensitivity chipset for superior reception under canopy and in natural or urban canyons. Has anyone purchased a Garmin's 24K Topo Multi-State DVD, same as the microSD card, just more states and on a DVD In the last thread on this subject one forum member stated an unequivocally reply from Garmin that the DVD was NOT locked to a single GPSr. You may also find it helpful to check out my Garmin handheld GPS comparison chart. But how do you choose the right GPS for geocaching? I’ll narrow the field, look at choices in multiple price ranges, and delve into other uses, mapping software, etc. Geocaching is an extremely popular sport, and I’d venture to say that over 99% of geocachers use a GPS.