Any Sat Nav gurus here?

[Rave]

My mum is off to Libya over the Chrsitmas holidays. Yes I know- long story short, she's keen on historical sights and other interesting architecture, and she likes travelling in the Arabic speaking world as she finds the people friendly.

Anyway, the chap that will be acting as her guide wants her to buy him a sat nav that he can use in his Land Cruiser while travelling around the desert. My mum hasn't the faintest, so as the nearest vaguely tech savvy person, she's asked me.

Now in about 1998 my dad, who at the time was both a spendthrift gadget freak and a hill walker, bought himself a handheld Garmin unit which basically (as far as I can remember) didn't do much more than tell him his latitude and longitude, how fast he was going (I'm still impressed by Sat Navs doing this now, I was well impressed by it in 1998), and, most importantly, give him an OS map grid reference. It may have had a basic black and white map on, but I really can't remember. In a country like Libya, which is massive and doesn't sound like it has much in the way of roads, I'm thinking that's what he needs rather than a generic TomTom type thing (which probably don't even exist for much of North Africa).

I've just had a spot of inspiration and googled for 'Wilderness GPS' which has given me some promising leads on the latest generation equivalents of what my dad had, but all advice would be welcome, or if anyone knows a good forum to ask on? Either advice on a device which would suit off the shelf, or advice on a program I can buy and install on a cheapo Navigo-style satnav which wil make it do what I want (I had a first gen Navigo from Ebuyer and they're dead easy to hack- the unit itself doesn't need to be robust as I understand it).

TIA.

Edit: Budget is about £150.

[Rave]

This thread is now #2 result if you google "libya sat nav". That was quick.

I guess I'm out of luck for something really good then. I'm think a Garmin Dakota 10 (or maybe 20 for the built in electronic compass) will be about as good as the fella can get.

[AledJ]

Why does the guide need a sat nav??? And I would have thought he would be an expert in relation to travelling in the desert??

[blueball]

A tomtom in the desert is about as much use as sunblock in Scotland. You would be better with a map and a GPS with good battery life and that could run from the cigar lighter when in the car.

[AledJ]

A tomtom in the desert is about as much use as sunblock in Scotland. You would be better with a map and a GPS with good battery life and that could run from the cigar lighter when in the car.

Or a desert guide maybe ?

[Rave]

Hell I don't know. I guess traditional navigation in the desert is purely by compass; Sat Nav ought to make it easy. If the guy knows where he wants to be in Lat/Long terms then I guess any sat nav that can work with that will suffice. I know that both the Sat Nav devices I have experience with (Navigo Mk1/ Nokia N95) will happily tell you exactly where you are in Lat/Long terms- I just don't know if they can be persuaded to guide you to a specific location. I mean how would that work? "Turn right about 10 degrees for proper heading"?

[blueball]

I have a Garmin GPS12 (now discontinued) which gives you an arrow on the screen to follow much like a compass. Just keep it pointing straight ahead and follow it.

A similar type is https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=144&pID=8705

[Flibb]

some satnavs can display your position on a topographical map, for the US/UK/EU this is pretty easy, but for other countrys you are going to have to hunt fo digital maps and software to diplay them. The driver for your mums 4x4 might be after a tomtom like setup, many places will be on roads and tracks. Inputting lat/long and driving towards it will result in a stuck 4x4 or worse.

Just about every hand held or vehicle mounted sat nav allows you to input a lat/long, and then tells you which way to go to get there, along with eta, avg speed, etc. You can add waypints to link together a sensible route, rather than heading straight towars the destination.

I think you need to find out what the guide wants, a simple non mapping gps is around £65, a digital mapping setup can set you back £500+.

pocketgpsworld is the main gps forum around these parts.