Greetings!

I am thinking of getting a handheld GPS unit to give as a gift. The recipient has no idea about this, but is familiar with compasses and such. I need something self contained, easy to use, powerful for street navigation, but also useful for camping. I am looking for quality, reliability and ease of use. There are a number of experienced geocachers out there, so let me know what you would recommend. Thanks!

I'mana go ahead and be the first to recommend the Garmin GPS V. I got mine close to when it first came out -- they have a different package out now with the same unit.

I'm really happy with mine.

Yup. Ditto on that. I think it's one of the few handhelds that can do street nav... and still be a real handheld. I love mine and also got it when it first came out. It's rock solid.

Yep, the Garmin V has been pretty good for me too...

- Jon

A friend of mine has one of the new etrex venture which he seems very pleased with. I've got a plain old Etrex which seems to do the trick, it's got a screen, NMEA output and it was cheap.

I just got an Etrex Legend for my birthday and I'm quite pleased with it. I brought it with me on a recent camping trip - it is quite a durable unit and it is waterproof. If you're out in the woods any, this is a great unit for that. Although it doesn't come standard, you can add topo, street, and/or nautical maps for various regions if you buy those products from Garmin.

Just to note, the Etrex do not have street nav capabilities, which was one of Paul's requirements.

the Etrex do not have street nav capabilities

It doesn't have "street nav" fxnality per-se, but you can approximate the functionality by marking waypoints along your route on top of the street maps. Not ideal, but just being able to see the map of the city and my destination satisfies all the fxnality I need. It's pretty easy to d/l points of interest to the eTrex, too, which makes it easy to find places in town and set them as waypoints to navigate to. But I would only recommend the eTrex if using it for camping is more important to you than street-naving because the eTrex is very rugged and impervious to getting knocked around, dropped, etc.

- trs

In reply to:

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being able to see the map of the city and my destination satisfies all the fxnality I need

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Ditto. Plus, as I said, it was cheap!