Foretravel Owners' Forum For owners and Fans of Foretravel Motorcoaches September 13, 2025 ...

Jimmy,

Think you will find the CD/DVDs are very expensive and your GPS is obsolete. Prices have really come down and if you look around $100 buys a great stand alone GPS today. I have seen the RV 7" GPS units used on Craigslist for $50 with the new price a year earlier at several hundred dollars.

I use a stand alone TomTom XXL 540TM on the side front window on our U300. It is 5" and does Canada, U.S., Mexico and Europe. I had been using it in all of our cars as well as taking it on trips for the rental car. I have tried many different models and love this one. I found a another NEW 540TM on Craigslist for $40 so don't have to take it out of the U300 now. We used it in Mexico and Europe and were very happy with it. Excellent sound from the speaker while others are hard to understand. The arrival time on the screen is EXCELLENT and great for planning lunch, dinner or fuel stops. Disadvantage: if you don't get free updates included, they cost as much as the GPS. Free updates require a computer and are more complicated to do vs a tablet.

Having said that, while I keep the TomTom on all the time, I like using a tablet for trip planning and moving map on the road. The 5" TomTom is fine for basic navigation but the small screen limits detail and visibility. An iPad or Android tablet gives the best of all worlds. With an external GPS receiver, the reception is super in cities and it can be used with all the RV apps with WiFi or an optional but costly 3G connection. With a 10" tablet, you have so much screen room that the basic nav apps like TomTom, Garmin, etc., start to lose their usefulness as there is not enough detail on the large screen. Enter an app like Sygic. It uses TomTom maps while giving an excellent more detailed view of cities with a very fast change from 2D view above to 3D views. We used it in our recent trip to Puerto Penasco in Mexico and it worked great. All the the tablet GPS apps do NOT require an internet connection as the maps are stored on the device. Tablets can use mounts on the windshield, dash, seat mount bolt or custom side wall mount.

Big advantage to tablets with GPS: Each time you are connected to the internet, you can update the maps for FREE to the latest version. Use only free WiFi hotspots as the files are large and can cost a lot of airtime with a phone plan. Can use to check email, HDMI out to your big TV for a display, RV apps, topo maps apps available, photo/movie review and storage, etc. Battery life is very long so you don't have to plug them in if charged. Same goes for the remote GPS receiver as several will go 16 to 23 hours without recharging. You can also take them with you in public transportation or sightseeing in cities with WiFi hotspots.

iPads are super with day after day of hard use with no glitches and high resolution display. Androids are their equal but only if you buy a well received model. Our Barns & Noble Nook HD has a excellent high resolution screen but always has charging or low battery issues. Was only $109 new so perhaps you get what you pay for. With it plugged in, it works really well with Sygic.

TomTom info at: Amazon.com: TomTom XXL 540TM World Traveler 5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator with

Sygic GPS apps at: Sygic | GPS Navigation for Android and iPhone

Pierce

Jimmy,

Tablets are just big iPhones and the exact same applications will work on the small iPhone/Android phone also work on the  7" or 10" tablet (same OS). In fact, if you buy the app for one iPhone you can use it on 4 other devices legally.

OK, stand alone GPS. I would go to Amazon.com and look at the GPS sold there. They have most all of them plus reviews from customers. They do make 7" inch stand alone models that will fill the bill if you don't want to move them to your car. 5" or 6" max is about the largest you would want to put up by the rear view mirror. Mounting lower will usually interfere with your vision of the road and may be illegal. AC vent is another mounting option but then you have to look down and I like to keep an eye on the road most all the time with just a quick glance up at the GPS screen.

Here is the Amazon site: Amazon.com: rv gps: Electronics

Once you find a model(s) that you like, you can buy it off Amazon, do a general search with Google or check Craigslist in your area for a used model and pay much less. A new model will come out, especially the high end RV, truck models and will be priced in the $400 range. After a few months, the price heads down. The 7" RV model I found had been $400 but was $50 a few months later.

The reason for the fast drop is that the stand alone market is saturated and the manufactures are just keeping that end of the market above water. Even the laptop computer market is hurting as everyone is going to tablets because of the million and one things they can do plus how easy they are to operate. There is no real learning curve from smart phone (iPhone/Android) to a tablet. Just a bigger screen and very long battery life.

Hope this helps.

Pierce