There are tons of different reasons to use a GPS. Some people Geocache, some map trails, some mark favorite hunting spots.

What uses have you found for your GPS so far?

Trips, I use the Magellan to route trips to different places and it talks to You. It is easy to use. Just type in the Street address and it will take you there. no maps to fool with, it tells you when to turn.

I have a Garmin Etrex CX and Ram Mount for my ATV. I'm going to be creating downloadable tracks and Google Earth based maps of the Black Montain ATV park as well as surrounding off-park trails. Using the gps with Google Earth is just way too cool....especially being able to see, in 3D, how the trails traverse the mountains and ridges. I'm going to record tracks of the HCRR Lightnin Bug ride Friday evening/night.

I have a portable Navman gps navigation device for my car. I use it for just about every out of town trip. Last year I took a vacation to Washington DC-New York City (yuck)-Camden Maine..... We got spoken directions right up to the front of our hotels. We could choose a restaurant from it's database and get realtime accurate directions to the restaurant simply by clicking GOTO. Also, I take it with me when I have to travel on business. Once I head for home, I can look simply up at the navigation unit and see a very accurate ETA for when I'll arrive at home. And the ability of a navigation unit to quickly recalc directions for you when you miss a turn off is just so handy. My wife and I both agree wholeheartedly...if anything happens to the car navigation uint, we'll definitely buy another one....they're just too handy!

My girlfriend and I got her Dad a Garmin vehicle navigation GPS for Christmas. I can't remember the model name of it right off, but that thing is great. We have took it on a couple trips, and it was so handy being able to just put in where we'd like to go, and having spoken direction straight to the place. Not to mention the listings on all the restraunts, etc., makes me wish I had one of my own.

Yeah, what's funny, is what I saw happen a few times at work after I first got my car Navigation unit.

Frequently, one of our other guys would be going somewhere with me on a business trip. They'd kid and poke fun at the unit...especially if we encountered an unmapped stretch of road where the unit wanted you to "Perform a U-Turn Whenever Possible". But guess what....a few weeks later those guys would come up and tell me they had ordered one 'just like mine'.

Yeah, being able to simply enter and address and click 'GO' and have the unit tell you, within seconds, how many miles and your ETA....that's fantastic. Having it automatically reroute you when you miss a turn...priceless. And like you said, it's simply amazing how many restaurants, schools, doctors, libraries, shopping centers, etc that those things can hold in their database......and not just for big towns but for small towns too....it's all very amazing.

The Garmin Etrex CX I bought has the ability to store the same stuff as my car nav unit...i.e. street level maps with restaurants, schools, doctors, libraries, shopping centers, etc . It alos has the ability to provide turn by turn directions for a trip. However, I haven't purchased street level maps for it yet and haven't tried taking it on a road trip. Right now all I'm using it for is mapping out the local ATV park and nearby off-park trails.

I have a Garmin GPS very similar to yours.

It's an Etrex Venture Cx, from your pictures yours appears to be a legend or vista.

I have the topo maps that Garmin maps loaded in mine. I bought a 512mb micro sd card to fit it, and loaded all the maps for KY, VA, TN, OH, WV, and parts of some other stakes, with lots of room to spare.

I've even used Google Earth to create a route before, and somehow managed to get it in a format that was useable for my GPS and uploaded it to it. It's not quite as nice as the actual navigation GPS units for finding your way around, but it's still better than nothing. Takes a little more work to get the route put in, and there are no u-turn, or recalculations with them if you miss a turn.

Yes, mine is a Etrex Vista CX with USB connector and micro SD memory. I don't know as I'll order the street level maps for it....at least, not at this point.

I have a 2Gig memory card in my Navman portable navigation unit. It holds street level maps of ALL of the united states except 5 of the smaller states. That's a lot of stuff on one card.....and you know it when you start that thing up because it has to check out all the data on the card so it takes a little while to load!

Make great clocks also!

Yes GutBuster, I have to agree there. My ATV doesn't have the digital clock display like some do. I had actually 3M taped a water resistant mini clock to my speedo housing. THEN, I find out that the GPS has a great, easy to see, clock! As far as that goes...the GPS even has a Speedometer of sort!

Mine has an eletronic compass, does yours? More specifically, you don't have to be moving with mine to tell which way is North...you just put it in compass mode and it displays a compass that will keep pointing north even if you stand in one point and just start turning around. So I guess you could say that some can be use as compasses!

It also has an Alarm Clock, in case You fall asleep on the trail.

I don't know about anyone else's, but the alarm clock on mine isn't loud enough to be heard. It sure wouldn't wake me from a sleep if I needed it to. I suppose, maybe if I were geocaching and I needed to quit at a certain time, there is a possibility that it would be a good reminder to quit.

Sure not much of an alarm tho