I have a multi-country European trip (NL, BE, FR, DE, CH) coming up and am looking for the best option for navigation in a car.

I'm trying to decide between a GPS unit or an app on my iPhone. I see a TomTom VIA 1505 World Traveler model for $150 or a Garmin Nuvi 2598 for $159. I'm mainly interested in maps for Europe and even though I live in the U.S., I rarely need a GPS here. Of course, having the U.S. maps could come in handy in an emergency, especially since hurricane season has arrived. I remember during our Katrina evacuation, we had to get off the interstate and onto secondary and tertiary roads at night. Also, those of us in the affected area could not use our cell phones for up to a week, even though we had evacuated outside of the Gulf Coast. I'm also looking at the Nuvi 2577 which has U.S. & Europe maps included.

I want turn-by-turn directions, a unit that will get me back on track quickly if I make a wrong turn and doesn't use cellular data. The thing that concerns me about the TomTom & Garmin units is that it seems as if they were produced in 2011-12 and maybe newer models are coming soon.

I've briefly looked in the iPhone App Store at the Garmin & TomTom apps, but they didn't have any reviews on either one. Hoping to see if anyone here has any experience with them.

Thanks for any assistance.