Navigation / sat nav - plotting a specific route

[mike80]

Trying to find a way to do this, but struggling to come up with an ideal solution, or at least the correct terms for Google...

I want to try and plot a specific route, that I can then follow on my sat nav. But it needs to follow specific roads, rather than whatever Google Maps/Waze/whatever decides is quickest. Ideally I'd like to save this route so I can use it multiple times.

I can do this easily when cycling with the various route planning apps, but can't see an obvious way with Google maps etc.

Thanks for any help.

[Easternlight]

Which type of sat nav are you using?
There are plenty of tutorials on you tube for plotting on Google maps and importing the route.
You can plot the route on Google and then drag it around whatever roads you wish.
https://youtu.be/VMv0yK7XCrY

Edited by Easternlight on Tuesday 4th July 18:03

[Dave.]

Calimoto was the "go-to" for this, previously free but now is pay only.


ETA - there's still a free version, but turn-by-turn nav isn't included in the free version.

Edited by Dave. on Tuesday 4th July 19:08

[mike80]

Easternlight said:

Which type of sat nav are you using?
There are plenty of tutorials on you tube for plotting on Google maps and importing the route.
You can plot the route on Google and then drag it around whatever roads you wish.
https://youtu.be/VMv0yK7XCrY

Edited by Easternlight on Tuesday 4th July 18:03

Ideally Google Maps app. I've figured out a "bodge" workaround for the route I'm doing in the next couple of days, essentially by adding a stop in the route, but I guess that will still reroute you if it detects a quicker way. Not sure what to do for more complex routes.

[Easternlight]

mike80 said:

Easternlight said:

Which type of sat nav are you using?
There are plenty of tutorials on you tube for plotting on Google maps and importing the route.
You can plot the route on Google and then drag it around whatever roads you wish.
https://youtu.be/VMv0yK7XCrY

Edited by Easternlight on Tuesday 4th July 18:03

Ideally Google Maps app. I've figured out a "bodge" workaround for the route I'm doing in the next couple of days, essentially by adding a stop in the route, but I guess that will still reroute you if it detects a quicker way. Not sure what to do for more complex routes.

If you let Google maps plan a route from a to b on a PC you can change it by clicking on the white dots on every junction and dragging it to the roads you want to use.

[Riley Blue]

Easternlight said:

mike80 said:

Easternlight said:

Which type of sat nav are you using?
There are plenty of tutorials on you tube for plotting on Google maps and importing the route.
You can plot the route on Google and then drag it around whatever roads you wish.
https://youtu.be/VMv0yK7XCrY

Edited by Easternlight on Tuesday 4th July 18:03

Ideally Google Maps app. I've figured out a "bodge" workaround for the route I'm doing in the next couple of days, essentially by adding a stop in the route, but I guess that will still reroute you if it detects a quicker way. Not sure what to do for more complex routes.

If you let Google maps plan a route from a to b on a PC you can change it by clicking on the white dots on every junction and dragging it to the roads you want to use.

Try sharing your dragged route to your phone so you can use it in your car.

[nd0000]

If you can stand the clunkiness, some of the openstreetmap based tools like brouter and osmand will let you do what you describe, by creating/following gpx files.

https://osmand.net/docs/user/navigation/setup/gpx-...

[markiii]

first thing to remeber is your never telling it what route to go, your telling it what waypoints to create a route on teh fly between.

thus you'll get the fastest/shortest/most eco or whatever route between waypoints your nav is setup for.

short version is you need enough way points there is no other way for the nav unit to take you than the one you want.

Google can do that sort of but in recent years I find it useless as they have crippled the number of waypoints allowable in a single route.

my current favourite is myrouteapp

it lets you plot the route (or import form other sources) edit, add stops e.t.c and export in a format for whatever nav you have.

They also have their own Nav app for IOS / Android

to date I've not found a limit on the number of waypoints.


remember the golden rule though, you need sufficient waypoints to ensure it can't choose a route other than the one you want

[nd0000]

markiii said:

first thing to remeber is your never telling it what route to go, your telling it what waypoints to create a route on teh fly between.

The "Attach to Roads" feature in OsmAnd actually does better: it fits a gpx track back to the nearest road, then it can give turn by turn directions with the correct detailed names and speed limits etc. Magic when it works.

[RoadToad84]

I've had some success with using desktop browsers and Google maps to set multiple waypoints to fix a route, as mentioned above. You can then share the route which generates a link, which will save the route for access later on multiple devices.

Be aware though that it will not save it permanently, I don't know why it loses them, but suspect it may be to do with browser cache.

[mike80]

nd0000 said:

If you can stand the clunkiness, some of the openstreetmap based tools like brouter and osmand will let you do what you describe, by creating/following gpx files.

https://osmand.net/docs/user/navigation/setup/gpx-...

Thank you, I will take a look. I use gpx files for cycling, so I'm family with those. Maybe I should use my bike GPS to navigate!

Thanks for the help all.

[K50 DEL]

markiii said:

remember the golden rule though, you need sufficient waypoints to ensure it can't choose a route other than the one you want

I do this with my Garmin, plot a route using GPS coordinates, noted down in my travel folder then use every internediate point as a via, ensures the nav takes me exactly the route I want to go - can sometimes throw up some interesting results (Trying to avoid the King's Highway between Amman and Petra was interesting) but generally this method has served me well for tens of thousands of miles of road trips all over the World.