So why is something that sounds so easy so hard to do. Well, most people say exercise is boring; but it doesn’t have to be. GPS devices can put the ”fun” back into exercising. Cool GPS sports watches bring a new element of challenge to running, walking or biking. Geocaching using handheld GPS units can turn exercise into an activity the whole family can enjoy. Adding whiz-bang GPS technology to your exercise routine can not only rejuvenate your own interest in exercise, but is a great way to hook the younger, video-game generation on healthy physical activity.

• Geocaching GPS. Geocaching is a modern day version of a treasure hunt. Using a handheld GPS you follow coordinates to a hidden cache which can be anything from a tiny film canister hanging from a tree limb to an old ammo box jammed under a rotting tree limb. “Treasures” range from log books that let you see who else has found the cache to unusual trinkets you can take home. The fun is in the hunt.
• Fitness GPS. A variety of cool cycling and running/walking GPS devices allow you to plot routes, track performance, monitor your heart rate and perform in-depth analysis of your workouts through web-based applications. It’s like having your own personal trainer along for every exercise session. You can chart progress and see improvement with each workout. GPS adds the motivating element of competition to solitary exercise.

It was also give you information on the address and intersection closest to your current location. Included in this information are the addresses of places you may need to access in an emergency: police stations, hospitals and gas stations. This is good to know. You can feel safe hitting the road with a 700 series Garmin Nuvi. It will be there to help should you experience an emergency.

As you can see, a Garmin Nuvi can be of great assistance in unexpected situations. It can also help you plan beforehand and make for smoother travels.

For example, the Garmin Nuvi 750 Widescreen GPS Automotive Navigation System has an array of great planning features. One of these is the route planning feature that lets a drive save 10 routes. You can preview simulated turns on the 750’s wide screen. In addition, Nuvi 750 automatically sorts multiple destinations to provide an efficient route for errands, deliveries or sales calls. It also displays speed limits for highways and interstates. So the Garmin Nuvi 750 can help take the guesswork out of the getting to places that are familiar.

With a Garmin Nuvi you get the best of both worlds–information and assistance in for expected and routine situations. Visit ActionGPS.com to learn more about the Garmin Nuvi 750 and other Garmin products.

The Garmin Rino 520HCx GPS FRS/GMRS 2 Way Radio is a GPS device designed to do just that. This high-sensitivity GPS device is water resistant and it is able to pinpoint your position even in locations that would give other GPS devices trouble, like heavy cover or deep canyons.

The Rino 520HCx can not only find you, it can then tell others where you are. Its unique Position Reporting feature lets you send your exact location to your fellow Rino users. That way, all Rino users connected to your group can see your position on the map page. But the Rino does not have to do all of the talking, it will let you get a word in too. Besides being a great GPS device, the Rino 520HCx is also a standard FRS/GMRS radio. The Rino’s radio is able to communicate with other conventional FRS/GMRS radios.

The Rino 520 HCx:

-includes a built-in Americas autoroute basemap with automatic routing capabilities, including highways, exits, and tide data (U.S. only)

- has position formats including Lat/Lon, UTM, Loran TDs, Maidenhead, MGRS, a user grid, and more

-is equipped with a 10,000-point automatic track log; 20 saved tracks (500 points each) let you retrace your path in both directions

-has new high-sensitivity WAAS-Capable GPS receiver by SiRF

-has built-in quad-helix receiving antenna with remote antenna capability

-supports English, Spanish, Portugese, and French languages

-includes a large-numbers option for easy viewing

-give you the option of a dual-position display mode

-has a MicroSD card slot that allows for storage of optional MapSource detail

-comes with internal memory that is preloaded with a marine point database

-is illuminated by a LED backlit display and keypad

A visit to ActionGPS.com can keep you in the loop about the Rino 520HCx and other great GPS devices.

That was the thinking behind a recent comparison test conducted by Boston.com and Blast Magazine. In search of the best portable automotive GPS unit, reporters put the nine top-selling models to the test. This was no laboratory test, but a hands-on, down and dirty, get there or die trial that put these GPS units through their paces in everyday situations by real people. At both the entry and expert levels, Garmin’s Nuvi received enthusiastic reviews.

For cost-conscious consumers looking for practical functionality with a low price tag, testers liked Garmin’s Nuvi 200. Here’s what reviewers said: “The Garmin name without the price tag. Obtains a GPS signal quickly and has hyper-accurate maps and tons of points of interest.” The only drawback to the 200 model is that it doesn’t speak street names, a feature Garmin added to the Nuvi 250. With the 200 you don’t get all the bells and whistles of later models — music, video, Bluetooth capability, etc. — but you get an incredibly accurate GPS at an unbelievably low price; lower still if you purchase one of ActionGPS’s refurbished Nuvi 200 models.

On the expert level, testers raved about the Garmin Nuvi 880 which offers speech-activated navigation, MSN Direct and 6 million POI. But they were a little annoyed by processing delays in the 880 that were not found in Garmin’s Nuvi 650, and Nuvi 750 models which they noted “are known for their quick, responsive touch screens that let you zip through the menus to plot your course.” The Nuvi 650 and 750 offered nearly all the same advanced features as the 880 without those niggling new-product bugs — and at a fraction of the cost.

Bottom line, testers said, “You can’t ever go wrong with a Garmin.” How right they are. For a complete selection of Garmin GPS units for cars, boats, hiking, fitness, geocaching and recreation, visit ActionGPS. 

These experiments made use of one of the GPS industry’s top brands, Garmin. The modified Garmin navigation devices used by the German engineers are not ready to hit the market yet. However, these tests prove that GPS is not just for those who are on the ground.

Remember the Jetsons? Everyone was whizzing around in their own little flight machines, yet the traffic looked much like it does now. Well, maybe these nifty GPS devices for helicopters that were the subject of these German experiments will be available when we start flying around. But for now we are still driving on the ground and you can get a GPS navigation device to keep you on the right track. In the event that you still manage to get off course, a GPS device can re-route you.

GPS devices like the Garmin Nuvi 650 GPS Automotive Navigation System come pre-loaded with and accept points of interest (POIs), so they can point you to where you want to go. The POI database on many GPS devices also comes preloaded with information on scores of useful places like ATMs, hotels, restaurants and gas stations. Or they can help you remind you of that place you’ve been before when you can’t quite remember.

It’s been nearly 50 years since the Navy’s precursor to today’s Global Positioning System, Transit, was developed for military use. The satellite navigation system maintained by the U.S. government, called NAVSTAR GPS, has grown from five satellites in 1960 to about 32 today. The standard term for such systems is Global Navigation Satellite System or GNSS. Similar systems are operational or in development around the world. The Russians are in the process of restoring their GLONASS network. The European Union is developing Galileo. China is working to expand its regional Beidou navigation system to global scope. Japan is one of several countries with a nationwide system, and India expects to be operational with its own regional IRNSS system by 2012.  

Since 1983 when President Regan declassified GPS for civilian use, GPS technology has become so prevalent that today it impacts our daily lives in myriad ways. NASA’s new website provides a resource and forum for exploring and sharing practical uses of GPS. Earthquake-riddled Japan is using its regional GPS array to plot physical ground movements in an effort to create an earthquake warning system. Iceland is using GPS-equipped snowmobiles in search and rescue missions. In Bangladesh, GPS is being used to develop a flood-control plan by tracking flooding caused by frequent monsoons. In the U.S., GPS systems are now used to track wildlife patterns, herd cattle and keep track of kids to protect against kidnapping.

U.S. consumers are already aware of the growing capabilities of even the most basic GPS consumer products. Handheld GPS units and automotive navigation devices can track even the most obscure locations. Naturally, they can pinpoint the locations of restaurants, stores and gas stations; but some can also tell you if there’s a bear on the trail up ahead and where the fish are biting. GPS is quickly becoming one of those “can’t live without it” necessities of modern American life. Fortunately, ActionGPS puts owning a GPS within the grasp of every consumer. Visit ActionGPS.com to check out our complete line of top-selling Garmin and TomTom GPS devices at highly affordable prices.

But did you know that some GPS devices can also alert you to the presence of wildlife? This may not mean much if you are traveling through the urban jungle, but if you are in some bodies of water it can make a big difference. More and more boaters are using GPS navigation devices to aid them with navigation.

Garmin entered into a partnership with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and the Tampa Bay Estuary Program’s Manatee Awareness Coalition (MAC). Information about manatee zones is available on all new Garmin GPS chart plotters. Boaters can also buy navigation chips (SD cards) to update a GPS device that they already own.

Information about where the manatee zones are, and how far they extend is invaluable for boaters. This data empowers the boaters to do their part to help protect both manatees and the bay’s shallow-water sea grass meadows.

If you are looking for a Marine GPS device, look no further than ActionGPS.com. They have some great GPS devices like the Garmin GPSMAP 178C or the Garmin GPSMAP 76CSx Portable Handheld Outdoor Color GPS
that will take you through charted and uncharted waters.

While some of the lures were quite decorative, but it is still hard to imagine that people really got into bidding wars over them. Then again, they might as well be used as decoration because modern fisher hunters have much more sophisticated ways of getting to the fish they want.

The Garmin GPSMAP 178C need never sit on a shelf because you will be out using it to get those fish. It is so much more than a decoy. If you are a small-water angler, you’ll be glad to know that you can use the GPSMAP 178C with MapSource Recreational Lakes with Fishing Hot Spots. You will be ready to sail through some of the U.S. and Canada’s most-frequented lakes, marinas, and fishing areas.

Most importantly, the 178C is equipped with a built-in sounder. This sounder has Garmin’s exclusive See-Thru fish targeting technology and features adjustable range, gain, zoom and bottom loc. It’s easy-to-read, semi-transparent digital readout lets you see sonar images.

The 178C has a worldwide marine basemap and will accept BlueChart offshore map cartography. The GPSMAP 178C is ready for inter-tidal zones, wrecks, navaids and many of the other exciting points of interest found in various bodies of water.

The 178C comes with:
-Garmin GPSMAP 178C Sounder
-Basemap: Worldwide Marine
-Internal Antenna (featuring Single Frequency Transducer w/ Depth & Temperature)
-Swivel Mount Bracket
-Protective Front Cover
-Power/Data  Cable
-Owner’s Manual
-Handy Quick Reference Guide

Check out the GPSMAP 178C and other Marine GPS devices at ActionGPS.com.

With his son standing by for backup and my sister enthusiastically pointing out the Nuvi 350s many outstanding features (”you won’t get lost any more”), he pulled the Garmin out of the box with a groan and lamented, “I’ll never figure this out. What were you thinking?” (See my sister’s ”lost” comment.)

Well that was barely a month ago and you should hear my brother-in-law now. He’s become a huge Garmin fan, extolling its virtues to anyone who will listen. He and my sister just moved across country so the Garmin’s been getting a real workout. My brother-in-law used his Nuvi 350 to find hotels, restaurants and gas stations en route to their new house. He’s finding it handy now as he explores his new community. To everyone’s dismay, he had absolutely no trouble learning how to program the Garmin and has become the self-proclaimed “family expert” on automotive GPS devices.

Actually that’s not too surprising. Both Garmin and TomTom, the two best-selling GPS brands in the U.S., pride themselves on their intuitive, easy to use software and user interface. “Right out of the box, our flagship line of nuvi navigators are ready to go,” said Garmin spokeswoman Carly Baltes. TomTom’s VP of marketing development Tom Murray echoed, “We like to say with a TomTom, there’s no manual required — even though we put one in the box.”

My brother-in-law has been so impressed with his Garmin Nuvi 350, he’s starting to eye the Nuvi 660 Bluetooth model. At ActionGPS’s prices, they’re highly affordable. (Don’t forget to check out the even cheaper factory refurbished models.) My brother-in-law may never become the techno wiz his son is, but his experience with Garmin has at least given him a toehold on the modern world!

Since a Garmin navigational device can already do all of that, the company just took the next logical step: Garmin is soon to offer the Garmin nuvifone. Garmin now estimates that the nuvifone will be available to consumers by summer of 2009.

“The nüvifone is an all-in-one device offering unmatched integration of utility and function in a single mobile device,” said Cliff Pemble, Garmin’s president and COO. “This is the breakthrough product that cell phone and GPS users around the world have been longing for — a single device that does it all.”

With the nuvifone, Garmin fans will have the world wide web at their fingertips and get rating information for their intended destination. The nuvifone will also have personal communication functions including e-mail, text messaging and instant messaging. And here is the great thing about the Garmin nuvifone: you will be able to use the phone at the same time that you are getting GPS directions.

However, if you like to keep your functionality separate or if you just cannot wait until next year, you can still get a great Garmin Nuvi now. ActionGPS.com has a great selection when it comes to Garmin GPS devices, so visit today and get your own Garmin.