Cheap Tom Tom for US Car Rental

[captaint]

Hi There,

Myself and my fiance are leaving London to move back to our home in Australia via a 3 week U.S. road trip. Rather than hire a satnav with the rental car in the U.S. we thought it would be more cost effective to buy one. Some questions though:
- Should we buy one in London and then purchase the U.S. maps?
- Should we wait and buy it when we arrive in Miami (if so where's a good retailer)?
- What is the best standard model for such a trip? One consideration though is that once we move back to Australia we would preferably like to install Australian maps onto it so it has a life span of more than 3 weeks.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Rick F.]

Hi There,

Myself and my fianc? are leaving London to move back to our home in Australia via a 3 week U.S. road trip. Rather than hire a satnav with the rental car in the U.S. we thought it would be more cost effective to buy one. Some questions though:
- Should we buy one in London and then purchase the U.S. maps?
- Should we wait and buy it when we arrive in Miami (if so where's a good retailer)?
- What is the best standard model for such a trip? One consideration though is that once we move back to Australia we would preferably like to install Australian maps onto it so it has a life span of more than 3 weeks.

Thanks in advance for your help!

I think it would be cheaper to buy one once you arrive in Miami. Additional maps are around $100 USD. Also, with the exchange rate, you might save a bit of money. Not sure what model to suggest. I have the TomTom 3rd edition - which suits my needs - but it only has 1 gig of fixed memory. Not sure how big Australia maps are. The 3rd edition runs around $150 I think.

As far as vendors, I would suggest Circuit City or Best Buy.

Hope this helps.