Round the World travel

Dziekanowski · 04-08-05, 06:16 AM

I am off on a round the world trip for a year starting in July.

I am taking an X50v with me and am likely going to get a CF GPS card however I am not sure what application would be most appropriate for me.

What I am trying to achieve is to keep a log of everywhere we go using the GPS but I want an app with good worldwide coverage to see where I am.

I also want to find a neat way to upload the GPS data to a website that plots my course as I travel so that friends and family back home can see where we are and what course we have taken.

We are going to North America, Central America, South America, Australasia, South East Asia, China and then back across Europe on our way home to the United Kingdom.

Does anyone have any tips on hardware and/or software that may be useful to me?

All I have found so far is Pocket Earth which I may be able to make some use of.

Also, I'd like a Pocket Streets type application but with wider coverage for when I am in places like South America or China.

Any advice will be very gratefully received. :approve:

ravenit · 04-08-05, 07:12 AM

i use oziexplorer for desktop and ppc you can scan in your own maps if shop maps are not what you are after.
There is a demo version on their site for both I think. ended up buying them as they are so good.
www.oziexplorer.com

tralalala · 04-08-05, 11:19 AM

Dziekanowski, isn't this a name of 'famous' Polish soccer player? ;) Are you related to him? Is UK your real home? Anyway, try also MemoryMap. Very useful info you can find on gpspassion.com including comparison with OZI. I use Memory Map on my flights to Europe and trips within the US. I downloaded maps before my trips so everything worked perfect. Good luck,

04-08-05, 11:42 AM

Good luck with your trip. Let us know what hardware gps and software you end up using.

JakeRich · 04-08-05, 02:17 PM

For the logging, you might look at Delorme BlueLogger. It logs your position internally, then you can download the results as a text file that you can do whatever you want. Battery life is good, too.

Theophilus · 04-08-05, 02:31 PM

Man I'm so jealous...

I love to travel, and to take a gap year for a world trip is one of my dream. Too bad I didn't do that when I was student

Now it's too late, with the wife, the money to earn (to feed the Axim, mainly

), the work to finish, the kids to make, ....

(I love my life, but this is one of my regrets. On the other hand, I don't see myself quitting everything to leave, it would be a lot worse)

Anyway, perhaps you should visit this site:
Visual IT

It's not what you asked, but they make maps, travel guides, etc. for PPCs. I use the guide for London, and I know they have a lot of different places. Very good quality software (not free though, but I guess if you leave for a gap year then you can afford a little PPC app

)

Good luck for your travels!

Perhaps you could ask Chris to assign you a bit of space here, to do some globetrotter reportage-like updates, in a "Axim around the world" kind ;) THat would be a great addition to this already wonderful site.

Dziekanowski · 04-11-05, 08:38 PM

Hi folks, thanks for the replies.

My X50v is due to arrive later this week so I think I'll take your advice and trial Ozi and Memory Map, both look like they have the potential to be useful for me.

I'm very impressed by tralalala, knowing who Dziekanowski is! I'm not related to the real Dariusz Dziekanowski, unfortunately, but he is the most gifted footballer that I have ever had the pleasure to watch in the flesh. He played for my local team (Bristol City) just over a decade ago and is still remembered with great fondness by many to this day.

The Delorme device looks interesting from a logging point of view, and I may yet go down the bluetooth route, however, the idea of a CF GPS receiver seems more sensible to me at the moment given that I won't really be using the Axim in a car. I will usually just have the Axim in my hand on board buses, trains and generally walking around here, there and everywhere. I suppose I could put the Delorme in my rucksack but that doesn't seem a very elegant solution in my circumstance.

Given what I have said, can anyone recommend a decent CF GPS receiver? I have found a few reviews thus far but none that compare devices directly against one-another. Indeed, is there much to choose between devices anyway? Is it simply a case of a device either working or not working and there not being much else to review. I assume size and ruggedness could vary between devices and could be the deciding factors for me to consider.

Also, are there any CF GPS receivers out there with Xtrac2? I'm not sure if I'll need Xtrac2 or not as I am a complete newbie to GPS, please feel free to slap me down (gently;))if I am talking nonsense here!

With regard to the logging, while the Delorme BlueLogger sounds like it would look after the logging for me if I went with that solution, will I be able to do that anyway, in software on the Axim, if I use a different GPS receiver?

Also, once I have my GPS data, is there a website I can upload my GPS data to that will plot my route around the planet for folks back home to see where we have been? It needn't have detailed maps, just a general map of the world with detail down to, say, City level so that our friends have a general overview of where we've been (I'm not particuarly interested in letting them know anything more detailed than that!).

Sorry if I'm posting too many questions and, if any of them have been posed and answered somewhere else that I have overlooked, please post a link for me and accept my apologies for repeating questions!

Thanks, Theophilus, for your words of encouragement on the travelling front. Like you, neither my wife nor I did the gap year thing either so we're taking career breaks to do this now, while we have the chance! It's all very daunting, having only ever been overseas 4 times in my life before now (despite being 28 years old!), but I'm sure it will be an amazing, lifechanging experience. I have already put together a website of my own for the reportage type stuff (mainly for family and friends who may be vaguely interested in what we are up to) but will be sure to check in here regularly for any Axim related stuff as it seems to be a veritable goldmine of information with some really friendly, enthusiastic people lurking around every corner.

Thanks, once again, to everyone for all your help. How did people manage before internet fora?

04-11-05, 10:17 PM

if you get a cf gps you might want to get a 2gb sandisk sd card from dell. to store all of your maps.

:)

Dziekanowski · 04-12-05, 06:48 AM

Hello again. I've all but convinced myself that I want to get a SysOnChip GPS CF Plus II with XTrac II after reading some very favourable reviews of it on other websites. It is available here in the UK from www.globalpositioningsystems.co.uk for a fraction under £100. My only reservations are compatibility with my X50v (I understand that there was a problem with X5's with early SysOnChip GPS CF's) and the ability to log my loaction, in software, as I travel about for uploading to another app later on.

Does anyone have any advice, positive or negative, concerning this purchase before I take the plunge?

JakeRich · 04-12-05, 09:10 AM

The SysOnChip unit works on the X50, but you may want to reconsider the BT solution. BT units don't stick out the top of the unit, making it easier to carry the Axim around. They have internal batteries that last longer, and don't draw power from the Axim. You do spend some power with the BT on, however, so that may be a wash. The BlueLogger will store about 50,000 fixes internally, which means you can travel all day with the Bluelogger on and the Axim off and save battery power on the Axim. When you want to know where you are, you can fire up the Ax, connect to the BlueLogger and get the data.

Nevertheless, the SysOnChip does, indeed, work with the X50. I've got one and it does work.

Dziekanowski · 04-12-05, 10:27 AM

Thanks for the reply, Jake. You're doing a good job of making me reconsider which device to buy!

With the BlueLogger, how do you set the device up? I assume you configure it to get a fix, say, every 2 minutes or at some other arbitrary interval. Is that correct? Also, can I fully configure the BlueLogger, and retrieve the data from it, using my Axim, as I won't have a laptop with me.

Thanks once again for your help; I'm so glad I found this place before I just went out there and blindly bought some old rubbish that just wouldn't have been what I needed. Once you've helped me decide what devices I need for my travelling, all I'll need from you then are some suggestions of must-see places around the world so that my travels are everything I hope they'll be!

JakeRich · 04-12-05, 11:05 AM

The BlueLogger can be configured to log fixes based on either time or distance travelled. The range of time between fixes is 2 - 65535 seconds or 2 seconds to 18 hours, 12 seconds. You can also set it to record a fix every x.x miles. There are also speed limits (record only when FASTER than x, record only when SLOWER than). The BlueLogger itself comes with the PC software to download and setup the device, but there is an additional cost version to run on the PPC itself. I did a review of the GPS receiver and PC version here. The PPC version is shown here at Delorme.

Dziekanowski · 04-12-05, 11:16 AM

Thanks Jake. That has allayed my fears about not being able to use the device properly without a laptop. Are there features missing from the handheld version of the software that are in the PC version or is it fully featured? If it isn't fully featured, are any of the missing features ones that you think I would miss given my circumstances?

All I need to do now is find a Delorme supplier in the UK or ask Delorme if they'll ship outside the US. If anyone on here is in the UK and has managed to get there hands on one of these, can you let me know where you went?

JakeRich · 04-12-05, 12:19 PM

As far as I can tell from the pictures, the PPC version is full featured. You can compare the screen shots in my review to the screen shots on the Delorme website and see that most of the functions are there. I didn't have the PPC version to test, so I can't absolutely say there are no functional differences. Sorry.

Dziekanowski · 04-12-05, 03:08 PM

Ok, I've taken the plunge and ordered a Delorme Blue Logger with a spare battery and the handheld manager software for $260 including shipping to the UK. Unfortunately, Delorme say they'll be out of stock of Blue Loggers until near the end of the month so it looks like I'm in for a bit of a wait before I get my mitts on my new toy. I'll be sure to let you know how I get on with it.

I'd still be interested if any of you have any ideas of other apps that may be useful to me. Also, I'm still looking for a website that I can upload the GPS data to so that the folks back home can see my whereabouts. If such a service doesn't exist, I reckon there may be a gap in the market for something like that. It would be a pretty neat thing to be able to let your friends and family know where in the world you are, using your GPS data, when you are off on a long-term jaunt. Especially as GPS is now approaching the cost now where travellers on a budget can realistically afford it.