flyerhormones

I take lengthy road trips with my husband and pre-trip, I plot points of interest all over a google map. Normally, I would export the KML and he would import into our GPS which already has a map downloaded. This time, we are going to South Korea and we cannot find a compatible map. So we need alternatives.

Is there an iOS app we can use that might function as a GPS and at the same time use the KML map we extracted from Google Maps? We mainly need audio directions from Point A to Point B.

The car rental offers a GPS for rent, which we might take up, but we have read on forums that it's in Korean. That would make it useless for us since we don't speak Korean. Even if it is in English, there would be no way to import our KML file once we are in Korea.

How else do travellers sort out this sort of independent road trip travel? I'm from the GPS era, so to actually mark and read off a physical map is going to suck out some joy.

stimpy

What I do is use Google Maps on my iPhone which does speak out the turn by turn instructions to you. If you don't want to pay for 3G/4G data roaming or get a local SIM, then you should be aware that you can load the map while in your hotel on the WiFi and it will stay loaded on your phone as you are driving. Thus no need for a separate GPS.

flyerhormones

I didn't know Google Maps did this now because I recall trying some time ago and there seemed to be no way to import or use the maps I'd created on the computer. Thanks for this, I'm going to give it a go!

deniah

iirc, google maps does not let you take offline snapshot of korea??? due to licensing restrictions. this means no "manual" routing,

one way around is to set the route while you are connected, which will download the path for turn-by-turn navigation.... but it is useless if you stray off the route

there are many reliable, open-source-map based navigators out there for offline maps and turn-by-turn navigation. on android i liked OSMAND. on iOS there is maps.me

flyerhormones

I will try maps.me, thank you!

flyerhormones

Have you done this recently? I just downloaded Google Maps and signed in to my account. There's no list of the maps I had created on my computer for me to select from

stimpy

Sorry if I wasn't clear. You need to recreate the map on your iPhone. But Google makes this easy for you because it remembers the activity you created when you were on your PC. This works best if you are using Chrome on both PC and iPhone.

That said, I've never done this in Korea and I think deniah is correct that Google doesn't have licenses for Korea because when I try this at maps.google.com it only allows me to map public transport and not private automobile routes.

flyerhormones

Maps.me works really well for my requirements. Thanks all for the input!

wco81

First of all the new Google My Maps no longer allow you to save driving directions as custom My Maps.

Secondly, Google has a separate app. for Android to bring in your custom My Maps containing all the custom POIs you saved.

For iOS, there is a third party My Maps for $5 which will import all your custom My Maps. Then when you click on a POI, you can send it to either Apple or Google Maps on your phone and from there, use it for navigation.

stimpy

Not sure what you mean? With Google Maps on the iPhone or Android you can certainly save maps and use them later offline for walking or driving, etc.

Or are you talking about something else?

wco81

When you search directions on the desktop version of Google Maps, you used to be able to save that route, with waypoints that you determine, to a custom My Maps.

It no longer allows that, because the new mapsengine doesn't support it apparently.

Another regression is that in the custom My Maps, there would be a scale to estimate distances. No longer, now you have to actually trace a route for it to return a distance.

stimpy

OK, but you can still save maps when using the app on your phone.

wco81

Yes, you're talking about saving map tiles in the app. for offline use.

I'm talking about customized maps with customized POI layers.

And before they moved to a new engine, those customized maps could contain layers with specific routing or directions.

thekiwifish

Slightly off topic but if you use the Google Maps app and want to save maps while you are on Wifi for offline use later on, type "Okay maps" into the search bar and it will ask you to name the map and it will download all the different zoom levels for a set area.

flyerhormones

I found another app called Ulmon, but for now it's not as good as maps.me. I still leave it in my phone though...who knows it might come in useful once abroad.