Finding My Way Back from a Hike

[dragonflyspit]

I have a TomTom One. I was told before I bought it, that ALL GPS devices can be used to find your way back to any point on the map, so if I carried it along on a hike off-road, I could mark my car's location, and if I got turned around on the hiking trails, I could use the GPS to find my way back to my car.

I haven't figured out how to do this. Can someone explain?

 

[dhn]

As far as TomToms are concerned, you were told wrong, sorry.

You see, the TT is a road based unit. As such, if you were to turn it on in the middle of a wide open field and set it to Navigate to Home, for example, it's likely to give you a 'no route found' error because there are no mapped roads it can recognize near you to establish a route.

The closest thing you can do is establish the nearest point on a mapped based road as a favourite, for example, and it can route you home from that point. But you are on your own to get to that road.

 

[dragonflyspit]

CRAP! Crap, crap, crap! CRAP!

If I marked, say, the parking lot of a hiking trail as a "favorite," then I hiked away from it, maybe two miles, would the unit at least show the line I followed off the mapped roads so I could follow that same line back to the car?

 

[1XL-on-XR650L]

Not to worry,,, this can be done! You are right in thinking that you can designate your parked car as a "favorite" and by bringing up the "browse Map" when you get lost you can follow the cursor back to that location. There will not be a line to follow, no usable maps will be available (unless you preload them), and no navigation clues can be obtained other than where you are relative to your car, but as long as you are at least 50' ~ 75' away from a road, the cursor will show you where you are with reasonable accuracy. A word of warning though,,,, The battery will not last very long (I barely get 1 1/2 hours out of mine), so don't think you are going to go hiking with the Tomtom turned on and tucked away in your back pack for safe keeping! Mark your car location and turn off the unit. When you need it, turn it on and get a fix on which direction you need to be going, and turn it back off. I have been "way off road" with mine and it worked quite well. I even came up with a couple of different ways to pack along axillary power supplies for extended uses on long hikes. The Tomtom is not the best tool for hiking, but it can be made to work. At some point you will find that your "road nav" unit is too valuable to risk dropping in a creak or scratching up on the rocks. But until then, rest assured that it has the same chipset and position calculation software that some of the best "off road" hand held units use. You just have to treat it a little more carefully and learn to use it in a way it was not intended to be used.

 

[dragonflyspit]

Ahhh, this is good news. It's not what I was wanting when I bought the unit, but maybe it can save me from certain death when I get lost on a trail.

I'll have to try your method a couple of times when I'm NOT lost to see how it works.

Thank you both for the information.

 

[flyer1024]

well some units will and some won't depending on the navcore installed. my current navcore version will show a line pointing to the nearest road which would eventually get to your car but that road could be in a totally different direction to where you've left your car.

if you hiked to this road and then hiked along that road it'd get you to your car but I don't see any way it'd take you straight to your car unless the road it is parked on is actually the road closest to where you are.

and even then it'd be a direct straight line, not the actual route you hiked in. could be who knows what in the way hiking back on that straight line.

some versions of navcore I've had on my unit wouldn't even navigate to a road 50 feet away when I was in a motel parking lot. gave me a "no route found" message.

If I'm in a mall parking lot and navigating somewhere, the tomtom points to the nearest road where it then drives wherever needed to get to my destination, meaning you could exit the mall lot on the opposite side to where you want to go.

I'm afraid you'll be disappointed with the tomtom as a hiking GPS,