Use Google Maps along with GPS to get best of both worlds

I rely on my Garmin GPS device to take me to places. But it has its own limitations. It only has the most famous places stored in it and if I have to go to a relatively unknown place then it gets little difficult to find it using the GPS device. Although I can feed the places I last visited in my GPS device if I have clicked pictures of that place.

Thanks to Google maps, I can find relatively unknown places as well. But it has its own limitations. It does not dictate the directions while I am driving. It gets little difficult to drive and at the same time look into my iPhone to follow the directions.



So here is how you can have best of both worlds.

How to feed coordinates into GPS device

1. Find the place where you want to go in the desktop version of Google maps.

2. In the address bar, look for the ‘@’ sign. The numbers mentioned after it are the coordinates for your place. Note it down.

coordinates

There is another method to find the coordinate of the place in Google maps.

Right click on the ‘pin’ on your map. Choose ‘What’s here?’


coordinates

It will give you the coordinates of the place. Note down the coordinates.

coordinates

3. In your GPS device, enter the coordinates, save it to Favorites and set it as a new destination.



Note: The coordinates that you get from Google maps is not in the standard format that can be entered in the GPS device.

For example, in our case the coordinates are 40.746663, -73.980094. To convert it to the standard format multiply the number after decimal by 60 to get the seconds.

So the coordinates will become 40°44’48.0″N 73°58’48.3″W.