Seeking advice on Garmin Upgrade was: Help Please

[+atate75]

Our family has been geocaching for a few years with an old black and white basic Garmin.

 

I want to finally upgrade to something nicer.

 

I am looking for a Garmin unit that will allow me to plug it into my iMac and download all geocaches for a certain area. For example, when we spend the day at our local state park I would like the ability to download all of the caches in the state park.

 

I would like to have a touchscreen and a color display. I don't really need a waterproof unit but I don't care if it is.

 

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Edited January 16, 2015 by robertlipe

[+atate75]

I pulled the trigger on an Oregon 600. I got it for $312 total.

 

Do I need a premium membership here to go paperless?

 

Also, the 600 says that it will hold 4 million caches.

 

Will it hold every gpx file on geocaching.com?

 

Or is there a way to just add every gpx file from my state and then add other states as we travel?

 

Thanks in advance.

Edited January 16, 2015 by atate75

[+MartyBartfast]

Do I need a premium membership here to go paperless?

 

Will it hold every gpx file on geocaching.com?

 

Or is there a way to just add every gpx file from my state and then add other states as we travel?

 

Good choice, so yo answer these qurestions:-

 

Yes, to do what you want.

 

Yes, but getting all the info from geocaching.com would take months, by which time the first files you downloaded would be out of date, so best to stick with your idea of downloading a whole park/state at a time.

 

Once you're a premium member you can create PQs (Pocket Queries) which is a list of up to 1000 caches at a time based on certain criteria, e.g. centred on a particular park etc. You would need to create several PQs to cover a state, but then could put all the resulting .gpx files on the Oregon and have the whole state on there.

[+Bear and Ragged]

 

Do I need a premium membership here to go paperless?

Will it hold every gpx file on geocaching.com?

Or is there a way to just add every gpx file from my state and then add other states as we travel?

 

 

Do I need a premium membership here to go paperless?

Yes. Go here > http://www.geocaching.com/garmin/freetrial.aspx and you can get 30 days FREE.

NOTE: DELETE all/any cache files you may have loaded as a Basic Member. IF there are anyBasic Member files (eg .loc for caches) the unit will default any and all new files loaded to Basic Member. eg. No use for 'paperless' caching.

 

Will it hold every gpx file on geocaching.com?

Doubt it. That's a LOT of files!

 

Or is there a way to just add every gpx file from my state and then add other states as we travel?

Careful use of Pocket Queries will help.

Useing a third party app/programme like GSAK can help.

 

DON'T be tempted to fill the GPS with caches and leave them on there. They can 'Date' quickly. Nothing worse than spending time looking for a cache listed on the GPS, not finding it, then getting home and finding it's been Archived.

 

Have FUN!

[+atate75]

Thanks for the replies. I don't need the whole state, I just don't know what I'm doing with paperless yet. LOL

 

If I could just add say, a 5-10 square mile area of caches that would be awesome.

 

I'm going to sign up for the premium membership this weekend.

 

This sounds like it will be a lot easier than manually entering each cache into my old yellow etrex.

[+atate75]

I just found this very informative video showing how to create pq's.

 

 

I just learned a lot!

 

Thanks.

Edited January 16, 2015 by atate75