Trekking In Turkey: Long Distance Paths

Hi,

I've been looking at GPS systems for walking the Lycian way, and have been slightly overwhelmed by the range, and differences in whether you have to buy a separate program to process maps, and country map programs or chips...

Has anyone found their GPS fairly straightforward to use, and the Turkish maps easy to get for it?

Obviously there's going to be a steep learning curve when I actually get one!

Thanks!!

Hi,
I have bought a Garmin GPS60 for my planned walk of the Lycian way in September. I dont believe maps are available for download onto the GPS but waypoints are. If you go to the links page and the entry: walking the Lycian way by David Carter you be be able to request the waypoints, you will need the book in order to receive the info. it is then a straight forward proceedure to download these to your GPS and there you are, hopefully. I do believe maps are available with Latitude and Longitudes but I havnt found any yet

Good luck

Hi

I dont believe a technophobe will NOT be to some extent intimidated by using a GPS . When that is said I have bought the Garmin etrex Vista HCX to bring on my trip to the St. Paul Trail in June. I have trained with it and I find that it makes me feel safe and it is relatively easy to use with a couple of nice extras:
- It has a "TrackBack" feature enabling you to follow your own footsteps back from where you came in case you lose your way...I have used it and it works very well
- It has been very easy to import all the St. Paul Trail routes and waypoints from the website. I even found a rather rudimentary Turkey road map showing the towns along the way (not the small villages, though)
- Supplementing the GPS features it has a compass - I didnt imagine I would find it useful at all but as soon as I am walking toward a waypoint cross terrain, i.e. not following a path, the compass helps me find my bearing using visual landmarks which I can then use as guideposts leading me in the right direction
- It finds the satelites easily even when in my home and under the treetops walking in the wood
- It appears to have a relatively long battery life

Soren

Get the simplest possible.
First, you don't really need a GPS as nearly all the route has just been waymarked (see update pages).
Second, if you do get one, you need one that will hold 500 points, has a compass and preferably shows altitude.

Wherever you consider yourself 'lost'', non-teccies can just enter the nearest points straight from the book, and then 'GO TO' to the relevant point. This will give you a bearing and distance which will take you straight back on track. This means that you don't need to enter all the points, so you don't have to have the download cable and software and mess around with your PC at all.
Just familiarise yourself with how to enter and edit points.

Kate

Thank you so much for all your advice!

Just one question Kate, you said the GPS points can be entered straight from the book into the GPS when lost. I've got the 3rd edition of your book, but can't see anything in the book that looks like waypoints; are the points in the book, or on the website in the restricted section? To do the 'go to the nearest point' thing on the GPS when I'm lost, do I need to bring along a printed list of all the waypoints?

sorry to ask silly questions!

Thanks again.

For the St P book and the Kaçkar book, points are in the book. For the LW, you have t download them from the website and bring the list along.

all best K