Hi folks-

As I have mentioned before we are going to Europe later this summer and retracing my FIL’s WW2 campaign across Northern Europe from France to Belgium, the Netherlands and finally Germany.

We will be renting a car to give us the flexibility that we want and am looking for advise on what the best electronic navigation aid might be. We already have paper maps and am wondering if Google Maps or Maps Me is the way to go or is something else better. Looking at a small cell phone while trying to navigate European cities and towns doesn’t seem the best but I’m interested in hearing your opinions on what worked for you.

Thanks!

Rent a car with Nav

Sounds like a wonderful trip, have a great time!

google maps will be more than adequate, with paper map backup is smart, though you're not going to the North of Scotland, so service should not be much of an issue.

Your rental car should have a screen, and plugging your charging cord into the proper outlet should allow the display as on your phone to be on the dashboard.

I used Google Maps extensively in Spain, Portugal, and Turkey last fall. I didn't have cell service, so I'd download the area I was in on WiFi and my location would still update as I walked around. It worked very well.

Thanks guys for the quick responses.

Another thing I want to do is to get an eSIM. Does anyone have a good recommendation for one that is easy to use and actually works?

I have been using Google Maps and Apple CarPlay for the last 10 trips to Europe. My Verizon service went out for a few hours while in Germany on my last trip and I was in an area I was unfamiliar with. Total pain in the ass. But the rental car had its own GPS, which was clunky, but it worked until Verizon was back up.

I know times have changed, but back in the day (oh, 5-10 years ago, you young whippersnappers) I got the Sygic GPS app with worldwide maps. I downloaded the ones I needed for where ever I was traveling, so no issues with cell service.

I also got the Sygic for trucks (had a big RV at the time), which allows putting in vehicle specific info for routing.

Whatever works here works just fine there. When I lived in Germany I used a tom tom. And later an iPhone, it’s really not that different, just study up on your road signs, also watch your speed, Germans won’t typically
Pull you over for it but they have cameras all over the damn place and they are hidden very well as well as in the open and they will nail you for being just a tiny bit over

What smart phone do you have, if it's an iPhone load google maps on it so you have both the iPhone built in GPS via Apple Car Play and Google maps should your rental car not have Apple Car Play in the built in system.

Since you have no way of knowing what model vehicle you'll be driving it makes sense to setup the trips electronically on the phone.

Outside of total electronic failures, paper maps are pretty much obsolete but still a good backup plan.

I have an iPhone 16 so I should be good there. I just like a larger screen so if I can transfer the display to the car that would be great.

quote:

Another thing I want to do is to get an eSIM

https://www.onesimcard.com/bes...-sim-card-selection/

I have used this company for years. Very low rates.

I have used Waze all over Europe and it works fine. If you use Waze in the US then it will work fine in Europe.

quote:

Originally posted by smlsig:
I have an iPhone 16 so I should be good there. I just like a larger screen so if I can transfer the display to the car that would be great.

That should work with most vehicles, some manufacturers are moving away from Apple Car Play or Googles Car App on their systems. So just be sure whatever you rent has Apple Car play, bring your USB cable and bobs' your uncle.

Right now GM is messing with that on some vehicles, my EQEV doesn't have either Apple Car Play or Google Drive as an option, you can hook you phone to it, but you have to use their Google based in car apps to facilitate directions.

You can run the apple app on your phone and it will play through the car system but it won't put the directions on the screen from the phone. Yeah it's a PIA because connecting the two would make a better experience.

The cars Google map system works well but it's not going to allow a user to setup trips on the phone and transfer it without using the cars programming.

I bring it up just to be sure whatever you rent you make sure it's Apple Car Play ready....

We just got back. Google or Apple Maps work fine but they use data-a lot sometimes. You need to look at your cellphone options so you don’t run out of data or incur huge charges. You can download maps too to do navigating which will help with data.

We did take a couple of paper maps as I like to see a bigger picture than is viable on my iPhone.

All in all, we didn’t have too much trouble navigating around Europe. I don’t know how people in France drive, but if they are like Rome, I’d hire a chauffeur first.

Last 5 cars I rented all had Navigation in them

Driving in France with Nav was easy, but Paris is a nightmare. In a multilane city street must be in the exact lane out of 4 or 5 making a turn or you end up in the wrong area.

My standalone Garmin GPS has lifetime map updates, including (I think) Europe.
Since its a true GPS, using it it would incur no data charges, and I think that could be a plus.
If you want to borrow it for the trip, email is in my profile.

What you're doing is a bucket list item for me - my pop did 3/5 combat jumps with the 82nd Airborne in WWII. I'd like to retrace his steps one day...

Just take the train.

quote:

Originally posted by fischtown7:
Last 5 cars I rented all had Navigation in them

That’s what we’re hoping. In this day and age I can’t imagine not having one but I want to be prepared.

quote:

Originally posted by abnmacv:
Driving in France with Nav was easy, but Paris is a nightmare. In a multilane city street must be in the exact lane out of 4 or 5 making a turn or you end up in the wrong area.

We will be in Paris for two nights before out Normandy Tour and then for a week or so after our driving around Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. We will turn the car in and NOT drive in Paris. We did the same thing in Rome several years ago and worked well.