Jun 072010
I am looking for a personal gps unit for hiking and kayaking. I saw one not too long ago that works very very simply. You turn it on and mark your position when starting out and it tells you how to get back. That’s all it does. It is meant to be worn on a jacket zipper or a lanyard. Can someone tall me where to find it or suggest something else? Thanks in advance.
Two very good marine friendly units that are waterproof and float as well as being good hiking companions that have the tracback feature you mentioned are the Garmin 72 and 76 units. Go here to check them out:
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=144
garmin handheld gps
visit me at: http://www.garminhandheldgpsstore.com
DeLorme Earthmate PN-40 is best one for hiking.
I had a chance to try the PN-40 extensively on a recent off-trail desert hiking trip. The unit performed flawlessly, and though I’m pretty picky about features, at the end of the week, I still didn’t have a wish list.
Delorme’s new high resolution color aerial imaging is a real upgrade from it’s previous topo and “satellite” imagery. Comparing side by side with Google Earth, Google has a slight edge on resolution, but it’s pretty close. And for a mobile GPS, the resolution is more than you need, and you can zoom up on details that provide more than enough detail. Delorme’s new subscription pricing option of $30 for a year’s worth of unlimited map downloading is a much better pricing model than the old “pay as you go”, which got expensive fast.
The PN-40 is fast, both in GPS acquisition and map re-drawing. The GPS continued to track while in my pocket. It acquires a fix after being turned on often within 30 seconds. The map re-draws are not silky smooth if you set it to always orient “heading up” as it constantly tries to adjust to your varying direction. But in “north up” and “course up” mode, where the map is static and your arrow is moving, the unit is very easy to use. And zooming in and out is almost instantaneous, which is much faster than older handheld GPS models with high resolution aerial maps.
Planning routes and waypoints on the included Topo software is an easy way to plan hikes, though you can also pick points on the little screen on the unit if you don’t have a computer nearby. That’s a slower process as you have to use the four-direction round button, which is not that easy to nagivate around extensively.
The unit is rugged, with high impact, tough plastic on the outside, and a battery case the screws tight with finger screws to make it water resistant.
The unit is easy to use but has a whole lot of layers of complexity if you want to do more. It took me several days of heavy use before I felt I knew all the menu options. There are a lot of ways to customize the unit, which is probably why I didn’t feel I wished for much at the end of the hiking week.
Though you could use this for auto routing, I find my regular auto GPS a lot easier to use for that. But for anything off roads, such as hiking or jeep riding, this unit is really great.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001FVLTNA?ie=UTF8&tag=garmin.gps.navigator.cheap-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001FVLTNA