Absolutely disappointed of Trip Planner feature (or I am doing it wrong?)

teejay

Last weekend, we made a trip to Mount Washington with an idea if we like the area, we will make the same trip in Fall. Following some guidebooks and looking into the scenic routes, I made a plan in Google Maps, exported to kmz, imported to Basecamp and then sent it to the GPS. Everything worked fine as expected.
(If anybody wants to know how I did it, instructions are here, https://sites.google.com/site/transferkmzfilestoyourgarmin/)

But when the time came to use the trip planning feature, it rerouted route to the quickest route and completely ignored the planned trip. I went through the trip planning feature to start the trip. There was not much to fiddle around on the GPS, tbh to make a mistake.

Has anyone used this feature and how to make sure that it follows the trip planned?

The GPS unit is Drivesmart 50LMT

Thanks in advance.

P.S - I could not trial run the feature before departure as it would start calculating the route from my current location to the point where the trip started.

Boyd

You can use the GPS simulator and set your location to anywhere you want for testing routes. As for the rest.... whatever, I gave up on using custom routes long ago. ;)

sussamb

In trip planner what did you select as the start point? If you selected the last waypoint that will be the issue, you need to select the point on the trip that you want to visit first.

teejay

sussamb said:

In trip planner what did you select as the start point? If you selected the last waypoint that will be the issue, you need to select the point on the trip that you want to visit first.

yes, thats what I selected (after I reached to the vicinity of that point). There was no other option anyways.

alanb

If the start point and final destination were the only points showing when you selected the saved route in Trip Planner, then for some reason the intermediate waypoints you needed to shape the route somehow did not get transferred into the saved trip. I have not tried importing a Trip that was originally a .kmz file from Google, but there must be something in that method that you need to preserve the waypoints used for shaping. I do recall that in the old MapQuest route planner, you had to change all the shaping points to hard via points before you exported it from MapQuest. Simply dragging the displayed route to a different road to shape it wouldn't work. Maybe there is something similar that needs to be done with a Google route.

sussamb

Agreed, if there were no other options something is wrong in the transfer. A route containing start point, end point and via points will show all those in Trip Planner, if they aren't there the issue is not with trip planner but your method of sending the route to your device.

I suggest having sent the route from Google to BaseCamp you then create a new route in BaseCamp that matches the Google route and send that to your device, it should then work correctly.

sussamb

teejay said:

sussamb said:

In trip planner what did you select as the start point? If you selected the last waypoint that will be the issue, you need to select the point on the trip that you want to visit first.

yes, thats what I selected (after I reached to the vicinity of that point). There was no other option anyways.

That in itself is confusing, at the very minimum you should have two options, the start and the end point.

teejay

May be I didn't explain it correctly

sussamb said:

That in itself is confusing, at the very minimum you should have two options, the start and the end point.

On the trip planner page, it showed the start and endpoint. When I fired the planned route up, it did show ALL intermediate points, just the route was not the way I planned.

sussamb said:

I suggest having sent the route from Google to BaseCamp you then create a new route in BaseCamp that matches the Google route and send that to your device, it should then work correctly.

Yes, that's how I did it. I have linked the method I used. I played around with kml as well as kmz file. KMZ file showed all intermediate stops. Imported it to Basecamp, selected the route, right-clicking gives you an option, convert it to a planned route (or something similar). Only then you are able to export it to the device.

I plan to reach out to Garmin to ask for didactic instructions on making the route and executing that in the trip planner. If I get instructions that I can replicate on the trip, I will post them here.

sussamb

teejay said:

May be I didn't explain it correctly
On the trip planner page, it showed the start and endpoint. When I fired the planned route up, it did show ALL intermediate points, just the route was not the way I planned.

You're missing the point (s). IF the route has intermediary points they will show in Trip Planner. If they don't then the import hasn't worked correctly, so it's no wonder the route is different.

Again, I suggest you import the route into BaseCamp then create a completely new route using the BaseCamp route tool. Adjust that route as necessary to match your imported one and then send your newly created route (not the one you imported) to your device, it will then work correctly.

teejay

sussamb said:

Again, I suggest you import the route into BaseCamp then create a completely new route using the BaseCamp route tool. Adjust that route as necessary to match your imported one and then send your newly created route (not the one you imported) to your device, it will then work correctly.

I will give a try next time we go on a trip that needs a planned route. I will have to spend some time fiddling around with Basecamp. I didn't find it as easy as google maps to modify the route, hence I went through all the hassle.

sussamb

Modifying a route is easy. Open the route app. Add start and end point. Allow BaseCamp to generate a route, then rubber band it as necessary to create the route you want or add additional via points. To rubber band select route so it's highlighted on map, press the Alt key on your keyboard then use the mouse to click on the route, now you can rubber band it to where you want, repeat as necessary until it's done.

Kevin_hutch

I have over 70 trip plans in my Garmin and all created straight on the device.
The only time I run into problems is when I have changed my preferences (shortest route etc) or avoidances (dirt roads etc) for a specific purpose and the next time I may get a different result because the route may have an out of date section of unpaved road in the map.
You need to remember the Garmin is storing the "trip plan" based on the waypoints not the route that varies based on various parameters and avoidances.

sussamb

Wow, not sure I would be able to create the routes I do on my device, mine tend to be hundreds of miles so visualising them on my Garmin is almost impossible, far easier on my PC using BaseCamp.

Kevin_hutch

One of my trips was over 4,000 kilometres and I set it directly on my 2797 only I found the 30 waypoint limit confusing as it dropped off the 31st waypoint shortening the trip.

I set a GOTO to the destination to achieve the shortest route then add waypoints along the way for POIs I would like to visit. I am surprised at some of the routes that the GPS proposes and the addition of a few shaping points are often added to make sense of the route. Sometimes I find roads that are marked as not paved require setting the unpaved avoidance off, I then have them updated for future use.

I play a few "what ifs" to see how far they take me off the rumb line, then set out my expected daily drive distances with extra waypoints.

sussamb

Interesting, you're obviously way better than me at planning on your GPS :)