Suggestions For A Decent Gps System

[giddyup]

I hope this is the right forum, but I want to buy a portable GPS system I can use in the car, A friend has a factory installed model (don't know the brand) that came with his new Isuzu, but you can't just type in the name of a town, you have to know which province it's in first. Any suggestions as to what is a good, inexpensive model to buy? Don't want to spend a fortune as it's probably not going to get a lot of use.

[giddyup]

Please disregard, this should have gone in the Motoring Section.

[thequietman]

just take the wife with you. if you dont have one just pay any thai person to sit with you. you will find he/she will know the directions to everywhere. i base this on my experiences of asking for directions. they always seem to know where everywhere is. they may be the WRONG directions but they will still insist they are right. shouldnt cost you more than 150 baht each trip. however if you are in one of the provinces that got the wage increase, then it will be 300 baht. good luck.

[giddyup]

just take the wife with you. if you dont have one just pay any thai person to sit with you. you will find he/she will know the directions to everywhere. i base this on my experiences of asking for directions. they always seem to know where everywhere is. they may be the WRONG directions but they will still insist they are right. shouldnt cost you more than 150 baht each trip. however if you are in one of the provinces that got the wage increase, then it will be 300 baht. good luck.

Surely you jest? My GF is hopeless when it comes to directions. I was thinking of driving to river Kwai, she'd be lost 100m from our front door.

[flying]

Actually skip the motoring forum sub section too.

This forum has a GPS sub section

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/forum/145-thailand-maps-gps-placemarks/

[thequietman]

just take the wife with you. if you dont have one just pay any thai person to sit with you. you will find he/she will know the directions to everywhere. i base this on my experiences of asking for directions. they always seem to know where everywhere is. they may be the WRONG directions but they will still insist they are right. shouldnt cost you more than 150 baht each trip. however if you are in one of the provinces that got the wage increase, then it will be 300 baht. good luck.

Surely you jest? My GF is hopeless when it comes to directions. I was thinking of driving to river Kwai, she'd be lost 100m from our front door.

thats my point. read it again. sarcasm perhaps.

[Mobi]

I played around with a number of sort of freebies - one came with my Samsung Tablet - before I came to the conclusion that Garmin is the only game in town. You can buy the cheapest model that sticks to your windscreen for around 3,500 Baht, and they go up from there, depending on size of screen and other add ons like blue-tooth.

It is a multi lingual system which can provide maps and audio directions in both English and Thai.

I have been using mine for several months including several trips to Bangkok and up country to Nong Khai, Loei, Petchabun and other nearby provinces.

Due to the vagaries of the Thai post codes and house numbering system, you have to work a bit to get the best out of it.

After a number of tries and experimentations, i finally realised that the best way to find a destination point is by searching for a nearby POI (point of interest) be it a hotel, guest house, restaurant, Wat or whatever you can find on the list, near to where you want to go as it will not direct you to a private address.

Once you reach your destination, you can then save the location for future use. So if your GF takes you to some Godforsaken village miles away from anywhere and not on any map, just save the coordinates and you will have no problems finding it again.

I found it pretty useful in Bangkok in areas I was unfamiliar with, but it did sort of let me down once when it led me round the garden path to a destination when I could have reached there much quicker if I had used my own route. But at least it will get you there in the end and you won't get lost.

The English pronunciation of Thai roads and names is pretty abysmal, but I guess you can't expect miracles.

I did get mega annoyed once when it refused to recognise the name Bumrungrad Hospital, in BKK,as a destination, no matter how many times I tried to search the data base, and I eventually just stumbled upon it when I discovered it had been miss-spelled as Bamrungrad.

So all in all a bit of a challenge and not quite like a simple inputting of a postcode in the west, but with a bit of effort, it can definitely make a difference to your journeys.

Good luck

[giddyup]

I played around with a number of sort of freebies - one came with my Samsung Tablet - before I came to the conclusion that Garmin is the only game in town. You can buy the cheapest model that sticks to your windscreen for around 3,500 Baht, and they go up from there, depending on size of screen and other add ons like blue-tooth.

It is a multi lingual system which can provide maps and audio directions in both English and Thai.

I have been using mine for several months including several trips to Bangkok and up country to Nong Khai, Loei, Petchabun and other nearby provinces.

Due to the vagaries of the Thai post codes and house numbering system, you have to work a bit to get the best out of it.

After a number of tries and experimentations, i finally realised that the best way to find a destination point is by searching for a nearby POI (point of interest) be it a hotel, guest house, restaurant, Wat or whatever you can find on the list, near to where you want to go as it will not direct you to a private address.

Once you reach your destination, you can then save the location for future use. So if your GF takes you to some Godforsaken village miles away from anywhere and not on any map, just save the coordinates and you will have no problems finding it again.

I found it pretty useful in Bangkok in areas I was unfamiliar with, but it did sort of let me down once when it led me round the garden path to a destination when I could have reached there much quicker if I had used my own route. But at least it will get you there in the end and you won't get lost.

The English pronunciation of Thai roads and names is pretty abysmal, but I guess you can't expect miracles.

I did get mega annoyed once when it refused to recognise the name Bumrungrad Hospital, in BKK,as a destination, no matter how many times I tried to search the data base, and I eventually just stumbled upon it when I discovered it had been miss-spelled as Bamrungrad.

So all in all a bit of a challenge and not quite like a simple inputting of a postcode in the west, but with a bit of effort, it can definitely make a difference to your journeys.

Good luck

Thanks for the advice.