GO 630 - Can I plan routes on the internet and download to GPS?

[debron]

I have a GO 630 I've had couple of years now and I like it except...

I use the GPS in my car and on my motorcycle. Especially on the motorcycle I like to travel the back roads. The TomTom does not like to travel back roads, it wants to route me on main roads. I can sometimes get around this by using the "Travel Via" function, but this allows only traveling from A to B to C, not A to B to C to D to E, etc., and still by the main roads (fastest route or shortest route.) If there are no cities or towns on that road or more than one road between towns, then I'm out of luck. In addition, I often like to plan circle routes where the starting and ending points are the same but I ride a 200 or 300 mile "circle" of back roads.

Mapping out these routes is easy on Google Maps or Mapquest. Is there any way to download these routes to the GO 630 or is there an alternative method to accomplish this?

Ron in Oregon

 

[canderson]

Have a look at this thread for ideas:

https://www.tomtomforums.com/tomtom...rary-planning-google-map-transfer-tomtom.html

Remember that any one itinerary on your TT must contain no more than 48 points, but you can set up lots of 48 point itineraries if you need to. What you'll be doing is forcing your TT along a route to visit "points of interest", which in your case, may be no more than turns in the road.

You can also set up itineraries on your TomTom manually, or using Home as your interface. I find Home better for this, since you can get better precision with the mouse than your fingers.

 

[Andy_P]

"Tyre" (in canderson's link) is so good that TomTom have even integrated it into TomTom Home.

I can't remember how it was done (probably in the install of Tyre?) but there's now a link to it on the last page of my Home menu.

 

[canderson]

"Tyre" (in canderson's link) is so good that TomTom have even integrated it into TomTom Home.

I can't remember how it was done (probably in the install of Tyre?) but there's now a link to it on the last page of my Home menu.

Yup. It's loaded as an add-on to TomTom Home when you install Tyre. Good stuff for a variety of reasons. Used to be a little doggy slow early on, but somewhere back when, the author seems to have optimizing the code, and it's got sufficient snap now.

 

[debron]

Thanks! I'll give Tyre a try!


Edit:
Tyre - Exactly what I was looking for! Thanks!

 

[Gurny]

can I plan routes on the internet and download to GPS

Hi All .
Just joined the forum before getting a Tom Tom and this question was what i wanted to ask.

I know this was subject was started a while ago but has there been an update?.

Thanks

Gurny

 

[dhn]

An update to what?

If you have a model that is NOT a 1X, 2X, Via model, then TYRE works fine in transferring a route to the GPS using Home.

 

[debron]

Tyre works well if you plan ahead at home but if you're on the road and want to plot a route that has no cities, towns, or POIs Tom Tom recognizes, you're out of luck!

 

[Andy_P]

....if you're on the road and want to plot a route that has no cities, towns, or POIs Tom Tom recognizes

And does that ever happen to you?

A TomTom might not know a very occasional town name, but I can't imagine any situation on a mapped area where it doesn't know ANY City or Town names.

Can you give an example, debron?

 

[debron]

....if you're on the road and want to plot a route that has no cities, towns, or POIs Tom Tom recognizes

And does that ever happen to you?

A TomTom might not know a very occasional town name, but I can't imagine any situation on a mapped area where it doesn't know ANY City or Town names.

Can you give an example, debron?

Yes, but first I should clarify I said "POIs Tom Tom does not recognize." It's surprising how many major POIs Tom Tom does not come loaded with (such as National Parks.) You are correct though, in that I have not found a city or town or even unincorporated community that Tom Tom does not recognize. It's just that I can't always get there via the route I want to take.

When planning trips on my motorcycle I often like to travel the back roads because they are twisty, have little or no traffic, and are usually scenic, traveling through farm lands, through hill and mountain country, forests, and deserts. I often cannot get those roads on the Tom Tom using "fastest," "shortest," "avoid freeways," etc. as the back roads generally are neither fastest, nor shortest. In Oregon, we have many such roads that do not travel through or to cities, towns, or communities, usually county roads or national forest roads.

That's why I like Tyre as I can map those roads on Google maps then transfer them to the Tom Tom. On the road, I don't have access to Google maps.

 

[canderson]

Yes, but first I should clarify I said "POIs Tom Tom does not recognize." It's surprising how many major POIs Tom Tom does not come loaded with (such as National Parks.)

Because of the ambiguity in identifying a "town" to associate with National Parks that cover HUGE areas, you'll find that TomTom has taken some liberties (a good thing) with the idea of what a "town" is and has included at least some of them as towns in their own right! For example, Yellowstone covers way too much ground (in multiple states!) to figure out any particular little burg for an association, but if you search Wyoming for a 'town' called "Yellowstone", you may be pleasantly surprised! It's in there.

Another issue with creating a "POI" of an entire national park is -- where the devil do you actually site it? There can be dozens of entrances. To get to where you really want to be, you have to be a lot more specific than "Yellowstone".

Another interesting search is for Montana, then "Yellowstone". I don't pretend to understand the technique used there.

 

[debron]

Because of the ambiguity in identifying a "town" to associate with National Parks that cover HUGE areas...

This is all true which is why I would think they would consider National Parks (and even State Parks) as POIs instead of towns. I.e. have a separate POI category for National Parks.

Even Yellostone, as large as it is has only 5 real entrances (7 if you count hwy 191 that runs through part of the NW section.) It would be a simple matter to put these entrances in the Yellowstone POI section. Also there are only a handful of "communities" liked Canyon Village, Lake Village, Old Faithful, etc. to add. Then the user could choose the place they wanted to go. If Tom Tom can handle the LA metro area, National Parks should be a snap!

This last summer I wanted to go to Dinosaur National Monument but had left my road atlas in a motel a couple of days earlier and had no map so didn't know what towns were near the park. Luckily there is a Dinorsaur, Co. though not near the park, following the directions there got me to the park.

 

[canderson]

Because of the ambiguity in identifying a "town" to associate with National Parks that cover HUGE areas...

This is all true which is why I would think they would consider National Parks (and even State Parks) as POIs instead of towns. I.e. have a separate POI category for National Parks.

Alas - that could be made to work with older units, but the newer platform won't let you search for a POI without a town name (using "Near you") unless it is within about 40 miles of your current position. Several of us have made our feelings about that known directly to TT.

 

[debron]

Alas - that could be made to work with older units, but the newer platform won't let you search for a POI without a town name (using "Near you") unless it is within about 40 miles of your current position. Several of us have made our feelings about that known directly to TT.

Oh yeah, forgot about that. Mine let's me search near me, along my route, or near my destination only. I've found that very annoying, not just related to national parks. Often I want to navigate to a POI in an area I've never been and don't always know a town nearby.

 

[Andy_P]

Debron... please complain to TomTom about it....

They only sorted out the 'Traffic area' issue because so many people complained.

Mine let's me search near me, along my route, or near my destination only.

In case you didn't know, you only ever got those options on the menu, but if you knew part of the name of a POI you could select ANY one of them and the "Find" feature would still search the whole POI database.
So even if I selected "near Home" it would still find a POI several hundred miles away from me, so long as I could give it part of the name to search for.

That doesn't seem a hard thing for it to do... easier in fact than sorting them by distance!


Now it is restricted to about 50 miles. That's maddening to me.

 

[debron]

Thanks for the tip, Andy P, re: the find function. I've used it before but never thought about it searching the entire POI list.