Soviet Military Maps App

Feb 23, 2016
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Death Valley - Sydney
G'day David, we're currently in the planning stages of a 2 week tour of Northern Thailand and Laos for next year. Hoping to do plenty of offroad and utilise some of the trails blazed by members on this site. None of us have much experience with using GPS devices on motorcycles so I'm wondering if you could recommend any good cost effective devices that would do the trick and not cost the earth and also be user friendly enough to enable us to upload routes obtained from the pages of GT-Rider. Apologies if this has already been covered somewhere in the forums but there is that much info there that I'm going round in circles. Any advice would be welcomed.
 

Oddvar

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Mar 18, 2013
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OSM, open street map is free to use. More correct in SE Asia than Garmin/Tom Tom since many local riders here update it frequently.
www.openstreetmap.org
Works best on Android and can be used offline on your phone. No need to buy a separate GPS unit. A waterproof handlebar bag and a Power bank will keep you going all day long.
Have a nice trip.
 
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Mar 30, 2010
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Here is a link to generate your own map..
Planet.osm extracts | BBBike.org

or you can download a map of Sth East Asia complied last month.
Dropbox - gmapsupp.img

The first link allows a map for multiple format / devices..
The second link is for Garmin GPS.

GPS device really is up to personal choice.. But do buy it in your own country.
Especially if you are from the USA.. As much much cheaper than over here in LoS.

Some like the Zumo, others like the Montana.. then you have the much smaller units.
Have a look on http://www.gpscity.com

If you can't find what you like here.. You never will :)

Cheers
Brian
 
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Feb 23, 2016
23
2
3
Death Valley - Sydney
Appreciate the info boys. Here's hoping we can get our heads around how all this stuff works. I'm assuming it's vital that any map we use should be topographical? Pretty mountainous terrain judging from all the posts and map elevations on here. OSM doesn't seem to have any topography and also lists directions in Thai script rather than English. A lot more to this self guided touring than first meets the eye! One of the boys already has a small Garmin hand held unit so that may be the go? Just need to learn how to upload the relevant maps. Fortunately we have time on our side and can endeavour to get our heads around this stuff well prior to D-Day. We've seen a few of your rides through Northern Laos Brian and the terrain looks like just what we're after. The hope is to get a device and be able to upload your routes so we just have to follow the arrow but that may be pie in the sky??? A lot more research required. Anyway, cheers again for your input, it's appreciated.
 
Mar 30, 2010
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When you load the osm map on your garmin. It will look and feel like any other garmin map.
The Web view is very different look and feel.

There are some topo maps available for osm on Android. I never bothered with them.

The Android version is OSM AND or OSM AND + The plus version is unlimited updates and goes towards the hosting etc of the site / service.

The free version allows 10 updates

Cheers
Brian
 
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