So while I had an hour or so to kill in my car today I decided to make absolutely sure that my Garmin Nuvi 765T GPS was going to be ready for my big Italy trip. After all, it wouldn’t do to show up in Florence and then realize that I hadn’t imported the maps properly.
Step one was to see if it knew where my hotel was in Florence. Well, okay some random hotel in Florence. Googling “Florence Hotel” returns the Hotel Kraft at Via Solferino 2. Clicking Where To >> Address from the main menu gives you the option of selecting your destination country at the bottom right of the screen.
Select Country
Next, I clicked Spell City and started typing in “Florence”. At some point it auto detected the city and made a recommendation. It also works if you type in Firenze, but I was worried that it would try to speak to me in Italian and I haven’t started studying my phrase book yet.
Select Florence
Suggests Florence
The Nuvi then asks for the street name and the house number. I entered in the info for the Kraft Hotel.
Ready for Kraft Hotel
But before clicking on Go!, I wanted to check the Map.
Successfully finds Kraft Hotel!
Success! Now for the interesting part. How will it tell me to drive there from Vancouver? Would it direct me to the Vancouver International Airport? Would it make me drive to Newfoundland and then go to the airport? I wonder…. then I click Go!
Wait. Wait. Wait. Calculating 51%
Cannot calculate the route?!
Boo. And it took a few minutes before getting to 51% and giving up. Now we’ll never know.
But this got me thinking…. how far will the Nuvi take me? Let’s say that I want to do a late night donut run, but I’m looking to go a bit out of my way. I click Where to >> Points of Interest >> Food >> Bagel or Donut and then scroll all the way to the bottom.
Mmmmmmm Donut.
California?! Eureka indeed.
Ahh, the good ol’ Donut Mill on 4th Street in Eureka, California. Well, it looks like only 1165 kilometers and an ETA of 11 hours. Note that the distance on the Points of Interest screen above appears to be as the crow flies (942.9 km), while this final screen below looks like driving distance. Also, I’ve driven through Eureka from Vancouver and 11 hours is a pretty good estimate! Including stops for gas, light shopping, and sit down meals (grand slam breakfast or moons over my hammy?) it takes about 13-14 hours to San Francisco from here at a reasonable speed.
Harold and Kumar 3?
Well, that’s all the time for fun for now. At least I’m reasonably confident that the Nuvi will be ready for us when we get to Italy!