If you are an American or European planning on travelling in Asia this year and are going to be driving a car then you will need to get used to the different culture and practicalities of driving in these countries. It’s not just down to the way the locals drive though, it will also benefit you to have everything you need to know at your fingertips in terms of directions, junctions, and street names – which is where owning a Garmin or TomTom GPS comes in very handy.
Both companies offer map update services which let you download new maps for new countries that you are travelling to. So for example with Garmin the chances are you won’t have Asian maps pre-loaded on your Garmin Nuvi GPS. If that is the case you will need to buy a Garmin Nuvi update. The options and prices are as follows:
- City Navigator Southeast Asia NT
- City Navigator India NT
- City Navigator China NT – English
Each one of these map installs retails at $199 US dollars for either the map software download version, or you can buy them on an SD Card if the memory on your GPS is an issue – plus of course, an SD Card is very portable so you can take it with you as hand luggage.
TomTom offer a similar service called TomTom Map Updates for customers driving on the Asian continent with a TomTom Go GPS model. There maps are split more by country including:
- Australia
- Hong Kong
- Malaysia & Singapore
- New Zealand
- Southeast Asia
- Thailand
The TomTom map download size for Asia territories is around 170mb and the retail prices are all the same at $84.95 US Dollars as at July 2011.
By download and using any of the maps listed above for either manufacturer you can make sure that you reduce the chances of an accident as the majority of car accidents abroad involving foreigners are down to a lack of road awareness.
Make sure you are fully equipped with the latest directions on your GPS next time you visit Asia – so hopefully you can spend more time enjoying the sites, and less time being confused and lost on their roads.