Jump to content
 

The non-railway and non-modelling social zone. Please ensure forum rules are adhered to in this area too!

Travelling with Google earth


Brian Harrap

Recommended Posts

I shall be doing a bit of a tour of mostly railway stuff in Continental Europe soon and thought it would be good to have Google earth come with me. Does anyone have experience of doing this? I don't. Do i need a tablet or such like. Should I have 'pay as you go'. Do i need an unlocked device? Do I need a SIM card for each country?  I don't want to be looking around for WiFi when I'm in the back of beyond uncovering some long forgotten piece of rly line. Any advice would be much appreciated.  Brian. (complete novice in this department)

Link to post
Share on other sites

I shall be doing a bit of a tour of mostly railway stuff in Continental Europe soon and thought it would be good to have Google earth come with me. Does anyone have experience of doing this? I don't. Do i need a tablet or such like. Should I have 'pay as you go'. Do i need an unlocked device? Do I need a SIM card for each country?  I don't want to be looking around for WiFi when I'm in the back of beyond uncovering some long forgotten piece of rly line. Any advice would be much appreciated.  Brian. (complete novice in this department)

Yes a tablet would be good. Just do a search for Google Earth and download it Brian, there's no charges. Beware there are some places where it is not quite up to date. I navigated from Zeebrugge to Sedan with it to complement the Google Maps and the directions from the A.A..

Have a good time and remember to drive on the left when you come home! 

Link to post
Share on other sites

On a four week trip to Thailand last July we took the wife's Hudl (Tesco cheapie tablet - well it was free with Tesco clubcard vouchers !!).

 

From Bangkok we drove up to the north, Chiang Mai & Golden Triangle area. Whilst we did not navigate using the huddle, it was invaluable in locating places to visit, directions, booking hotels etc etc. We found Google Thailand maps were OK.

 

We used it mainly in the Hotels as nearly all have free WiFi over there, even way up north in the countryside.

 

My son took his smart phone and bought a cheap PAYGO sim over there which worked OK in most places. I was amazed Thailand seems more "connected" than the UK.

 

Happy holiday

 

Brit15

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

Brian,

 

you will need some sort of device to access GE. If you are staying in hotels or using cafe', etc. with wifi access, then you can access the internet usually at no (or little ) cost. As far as I can see, GE requires connection to the internet to work. It also often seems to be out of date, until recently we could see the car we sold five years ago still parked in our drive. The current aerial photo has a thin bank of cloud or fog, which stops in a distinct line halfway across the village, the rest of which is bathed in sunshine. 

 

I use a Samsung Tab 2 (but anything with wifi access should do). It is possible to download sections of maps with the Samsung to use for local navigation but I didn't find that very good.

 

If you want "real time" access, then you would want something that connects to a mobile phone cellular network, like a iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab S, etc.. You would need to speak to your current mobile phone service provider to find if you can get international data access and buy a sim for the tablet. At least that's how I think it works, my mobile phone is rather old and does phone/text only. 

 

Jol

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...