About a year and a half ago I bought a Garmin Nuvi 200w. I bought it just before Adam & I went to MO & KS to visit his family and it was a great investment.

About six months ago it started to notify me that the maps were out of date. And recently we had really started to notice this – it would tell us to take turns that were not there or show us as not being on a road even though we were trucking down US-64.

I looked online and the maps were between $70 and $100. So, I ignored the warning and coped with the map issue, while getting frustrated that a $200 item had become significantly less useful in just over a years time.

This weekend I wa spoking around on the interwebs and I made a discovery. First, my Garmin had a firmware update. This got me excited as I hoped it meant it would find the sattelites faster – which is my biggest complaint about it. As I wa slooking to download the firmware I made a discovery. Yes, a single map is around $70 however a device lifetime subscription that includes up to four map updates a year is a one time fee of $110. No brainer, right?So, I updated the firmware (sattellites still take forever to find, dammit), and updated the maps.

While I was poking around, I foundmyself looking on POI Factory and discovered some useful POI files, including all the rest stops on US Interstates.  I also discovered that, surprisingly, only one corporate entity has published a POI files with all of its locations – Sheetz. I find this odd – not that Sheetz has done this, but that no other company seems to. It is easy to do, and could give your company a boost.

Lastly, I updated the car icon to one with a dog hanging its head out the window: