I just purchased a Garmin 276C, and will eventually use it for snowmobiling, but I would like more detail for driving on rural roads, than is contained on the internal base map.

What Garmin disk do I need? I have looked at length on the Garmin website, and they go into great detail about the turn-by-turn detail for cities, and metro areas, but I am wondering if that disk has more non-metro detail as well?

I don't necessarily want elevation contours, even if it shows road info. To me that would be too much info on-screen and make it harder to read while driving.

I did search THIS GPS thread, and found some limited info. HCS GPS quesion

I have been using a "Garmin 3-plus" GPS with the Roads and Recreation Garmin CD, and has much of the info I seek, but that CD is almost 9 years old , and Garmin has not revised it, and is no longer available.

What do you folks recommend?????? The disks are too spendy to guess wrong.

2nd question: what size memory card, how many Megabits do I need for the 276C? There are many different capacity sizes available?

Thanks for any info.

Roger.

Since you're gonna use your 276 snowmobiling go with the newly released Garmin Topo 2008 for $89 from online vendors. Topo 2008 will work good for highway, rural roads and off road use. The elevation contors can be turned off in Map Setup on the 276 if desired. Get the biggest card you can afford...especially if using Topo 2008.

Thanks for the info RWS, I will consider the Topo '08.

Anyone else with ideas?

I have Topo and City Navigator. For road use you really need City Navigator. It will give you turn by turn directions and maps to any point in North America. It makes your gps as good as any navigator on any car (without voice prompts). I also found that City Nav had more seasonal roads listed than Topo. So, when loading my sd card with mapsets, I generally will load City Nav maps first, and if I have room I'll then load Topo maps for the area I'll be riding in.

If I used my handheld Garmin for mostly off road I probably would only need Topo. But I travel around the country a lot and take my handheld for getting from airports to my contact points, and therefore City Nav is the best choice for that type of duty.

|Tony

Interesting!
Thanks Tony your info is helpful.
My concern was if the city navigator also contained data for rural roads, such ad county highways, and township roads.
Actually the data on my older Garmin Roads and Recreation disk isn't too bad, but as I said in my first post, it's old, and not available any longer. I've been using it with my Garmin III-Plus.

For snowmobiling in flat country, the Topo contours are not very useful. LOL. I would get it for the road information it may contain. I find for my type riding, the road info is useful to indicate where on the trail we are, in relation to various rural roads.
I do ride in the Togwotee area in WY every season, but I mainly ride the trail system there,and Topo would be interesting, but not essential.

Next is what capacity, Megabit memory stick to buy. They make a 512, but one place I looked gave the impression the 276C couldn't handle one that large. Dunno.

Roger.

City Nav has all roads. Even rural roads and seasonal roads. Don't let the "city" name fool you. It will take a 2 gig micro sd card to hold all of city nav. I bought two 1 gig cards and split up the maps east and west. I also have a 64mb card that I use for sledding. I'll just load it with the areas I'm riding in, including snowmobile trail maps from gpssledmaps.com and that way I can change up the mapsets anytime I want. It takes a very long time to changed the mapsets on a 1 gig card, so those are not used for sledding.

Tony

Ah Hah! That was what I couldn't figure out, the word"City". THanks.
Also appreciate the memory capacity info.
R.

Go with the Topo 2008 if you are only gonna buy one disk...if you are gonna buy more than one disk then get the City Navigator too.

For off road use (snowmobiling) you'll get a lot more info with Topo....take a look at the screen shots for the same area...Bear Lodge\Burgess Junction\Big Horns WY...Topo shows a lot more roads/trails/rivers/landmarks etc...as I said before you can turn off the elevation contours.

Topo 2008


City Navigator

RWS, yes I see the Topo has the kind of info I had available on my older "Roads and Recreation" Garmin disk.

I may eventually get both disks , but too many other expenditures at the moment.

Next question, if I may ask?

Is turning off the contours accomplished in the GPS unit itself, or is that done in the software upload from the computer? Would seem a better choice to do in the GPS, but thought I better ask..

Looks easy to spend more than the cost of the 276C (I paid $489.00 locally) in accessories, LOL.

Hope I'm not boring everyone with these learning questions, and just maybe others are learning from this too.
R.

Since you're gonna use your 276 snowmobiling go with the newly released Garmin Topo 2008 for $89 from online vendors. Topo 2008 will work good for highway, rural roads and off road use. The elevation contours can be turned off in Map Setup on the 276 if desired. Get the biggest card you can afford...especially if using Topo 2008.

I found the Roads and Rec to be defective when used in a 176 and 276c...load any more than about 100 map tiles and you start to get random missing tiles.

Garmin's site lists the 512 card as an accessory under the 276c...must be compatible. I'd recommend getting the card reader for loading maps to the data cards...can be done without it but is real slow.

i use the old topo on my road bike has all the roads on it. if i was to only get one i would get the new topo 2008. i have the 256 mb card.

Believe it or not, I've found that US Recreational Lakes with Fishing Hotspots to have better maps for sledding than just about anything I've tested. That list includes Metroguide, Topo (the old one), City Navigator, Roads & Rec, WorldMap, and North American City Select.

Before I discovered this, I found Roads & Rec was the best forest road, 2-tracks, streams, etc.

Lots of good advice, but it sounds like you want good turn-by-turn directions for your car/truck on the road first, and something to use for snowmobiling as a secondary use, so your best bet for that application is to get City Nav. Topo will give you limited turn by turn directions and get you where you're going, but not like City nav in my experience.

Lakeeffect...
No, I wasn't looking for turn/turn , but rather exploring "off the beaten path" roads and rural areas, since I live in a rural area. I have tried turn/turn driving a time or two in the metro area, but find it sometimes confusing in heavy traffic, and timimg issues and lane changes enter in. I have found campsites, and remote boat public access areas with the GPS data that were NOT shown on county printed maps!
As far as turn/turn ,I find it just as simple to look in advance on the CD-DVD/ROM and just drive there, maybe with the destination way-pointed.

With all the good info everyone here has contributed, it seems there isn't one single disk that does it all. So I will consider getting two perhaps, and maybe two memory sticks. Dunno.. still mulling decision.
THanks everyone so far.
R.