How to plot a route on Google Maps and Navigate it on a Garmin Device

This video describes step by step how to plot a route in Google maps, transfer it to your Garmin device and then navigate it.

Note: Google seem to change the route to "My Maps" on a regular basis. If you don't see it in the search bar navigate to this URL: https://www.google.com/maps/d/

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In this video I'm going to describe how to plot a route in Google Maps,
and then navigate it on your Garmin satellite navigation device.
So, the first thing we need to do is navigate to Google Maps.
Now, in order for this to work you'll need to be signed in,
So, if you haven't got a Google account you can click "Create an account, register."
I have one already so I'm just going to sign in.
So, the first thing we need to do is click up to the search bar,
and click on "My maps,"
and from here we'll click on "Create" to create a new map.
Ok, so that's loaded a new map, now for this example I'm going to take you round a lap of Hyde Park in London, in England.
So, I've just renamed the map to that, to reflect that, and now I'm going to zoom in on Hyde Park.
This is fairly easy to see if you fly into London because it's recognisable by the round pond and the Serpentine lake,
so, have a look out for that if you are flying into London.
So the next thing I'm going to do is draw a line.
So, I hover over that and click down to "Add a driving route."
So, I'm going to start on Queens Gate.
So, single click there, it does an "A" and then work my way towards Hyde Park Corner, up Park Lane,
across to Notting Hill, down towards High Street Kensington,
and finish up just on Gloucester Road.
So there's my, my route there
So I'm going to click,
on the ellipses to the right of that and rename that,
rename it to "Lap of Hyde Park for the demo."
And click save. Now the next step is quite important,
this is where we are going to export the route to what's known as "KML" which is Keyhole Mark-up Language.
The only option that lets you do that is that top menu at the top.
So we click on that. Click export to KML, click on the drop down and select the actual lap of Hyde Park we did at the bottom,
we don't need the entire map.
From there we click "Download."
So the browser will now download it to your computer. So I'm using IE,
so I click at the bottom "Save as"
and save it somewhere memorable like my Desktop.
So the next thing we need to do is use Basecamp, now,
Basecamp is a navigation tool that comes free from Garmin,
so if you navigate to www.garmin.com,
and search for "Basecamp"
The first result of the recommended results is a link to Basecamp.
If we scroll down here,
There's options to download it for the Mac an also the PC,
I've already got it installed so I'm just going to fire it up.
So,
my Basecamp is loading now. Now most people, (we get a tool tip there, tip for Basecamp we can close),
when they fire up Basecamp for the fist time they wonder why the map is so undetailed,
well it typically uses the map from your device, so if you plug in you device,
like I just have then you get the more detailed map.
So first a bit of housekeeping, I'm going to create a new folder for our demo routes today,
on the left, so I right click, "new folder"
and for this first demo I'm going to create a new list for the lap of Hyde Park,
lists hold routes and route data, it's a nice way to keep things organised.
So I've created that now. The next step is to import the KML file so,
I click on File --> Import to "Lap of Hyde Park Demo"
and I navigate to where it is. There it is on my Desktop.
And I click "Open."
So that's now imported that route. It's imported it as a track.
There it is.
So we select it on the left.
We "right click" and click "view on map."
And there it is, pretty much exactly as we plotted it in Google Maps.
So the next thing we need to do is turn this into a route. So,
we double click it.
I'm going to change the colour of this first to green,
This is so it makes it easier to distinguish between the track,
and the route we are about to create.
So the next step is very important, that's choosing your activity profile.
This is the activity you wish to carry out with this route, so, I'm going to choose "motorcycling."
I'm going to double click on the track,
and click "Create Route."
Now this can take a little while, because the KML file has brought in a lot of points, so I sped that up but now it has created the route for us,
I'm going to change the colour of this to red
and that makes it very easy to see any discrepancies between
what we wanted and what we've actually got,
so if we look closely at that route now, we'll see
it's pretty much exactly as we intended it to be. So that's all good.
So I'm going to "right click" here now and rename
just for completeness,
and the next step is to send it to my Garmin device. My Zumo is plugged in,
so I right click and go to "Send to"
Zumo 590 and then click "OK." Now if we look closely,
It zips across there, there's a progress bar.
So the next step is to import it on the satnav.
So I'm going to plug my satnav in here onto its mount.
And that's going to fire up.
Now because I've just sent data to it, it's actually going to prompt me now,
if I want to import them now, so if I click "yes,"
that shows me the demonstration lap of Hyde Park. I click "Import."
And it calculates the route. Again I've sped this up so it doesn't take as long.
So from here we can go and find where it is. So we go to Apps--> Trip Planner and there's the route, "Demonstration lap of Hyde Park."
I click on "Map" just to check that it is what we intended to do,
and essentially we are all good to go to navigate that route.
One last thing I'll show you,
is the second way to import routes if we don't do it from initially at the start.
We can click on that context menu, click "Import,"
and once again we can import the route from there should we wish.
And as before it calculates.
So let's move to the vehicle and drive the route.
So, here I am in my car.
I click on Apps --> Trip Planner --> Demonstration lap of Hyde Park
and I click "Go." And now we are going to navigate some of the route.
Now there are two options for start points, I believe that is just a glitch, either will do.
So I'll select the top one, click "Start" and off we go.
Turn right onto Queens Gate Terrace then take the 2nd left.
Turn left onto Queens Gate
Arriving at Directions from 12 Queens Gate on the left.
In a Quarter of a mile turn right onto Kensington Road.
Turn right onto Kensington Road
In one mile keep left to Hyde Park Corner
Turn left onto Park Lane.
In half a mile keep left on Park Lane
So that will give you some indication of what it's like to navigate the route we've just send across.
So that's a simple route, let's take a more complicated one now,
so I've gone back to Google, I've gone to "My Maps,"
And I'm going to create a new route
and this time we are going to create a route that travels around Essex.
Now Essex is a county in England, sort of North East of London, which has some of the best roads in the country.
So if you are ever around here and you are a motorcyclist, I'd definitely recommend going to Essex.
So what we are going to do we, we are going to start at Epping Forrest
or near the Epping Forrest vicinity and just do a circuit around Essex.
So once again we click, Draw a Line --> Add a driving route
and then we plot
so as before I'm going to rename this so it's easier to recognise
and the drill is the same as before. So we click on the ellipses on the top,
export to KML
choose the actual route we plotted,
download that,
save it on our computer,
and then we switch back to Basecamp,
and it's the same drill as before,
so I'm going to create a new list for this route so it's in it's own list.
And once again, File --> Import
select the route from the KML file,
that's been imported now,
so I'm going to open the track, change that to green,
as before so it's easy to distinguish,
double click on it,
sorry, show it on the map,
now I'm going to check my activity profile is the activity I want to do again, so motorcycling once again,
double click on it and click "create route."
Once again this can take a while because the route is made of many points from the KML file.
Ok so there's our route ready to navigate. Change it back to red.
Close. Pan around it a bit to see if it's gone wayward, or off what we intended,
so that looks pretty much exactly as we intended,
and then it's a similar drill to before, I'm going to rename it and then send it to my Garmin device.
So yes, right click --> Send to, select the Zumo and then click "OK."
So that route will be ready to import when we turn on our Zumo.
So one final thing I'll show you, you'll note some of these routes have been taking a while to calculate,
now there's a way to reduce the time it takes to do this and it's an additional step.
So you may find this necessary or useful.
So I'm going to create a new list,
and I'm going to call it, "Demonstration route of Essex 2."
And we are going to import the route we created in Google Maps once again. So there it is.
So we're going to do something slightly different this time, were going to change the activity profile to "direct."
"Direct" isn't normally that useful unless you've got a helicopter because it just flies directly between each point,
as the crow flies you could say.
So we've set our activity profile to "Direct."
We're going to change the colour of this route again, actually our track, to green,
just so we can distinguish it,
and now we're going to click, "create route."
Now you'll notice because we've selected "Direct," when we click create route we get a different option here,
now it's asking us to specify the number of points. It hasn't asked us that before when we were using the other activity profile for motorcycles.
So, typically I would take the number of miles or kilometres in a route and divide it by four,
so this route is about 100 miles so I'm going to put 25,
as the number of points and that's normally fairly safe,
but you may want to experiment with the number you use.
So quickly there you see we've got a route going between those points.
Now to make it a route we can navigate, we need to change the activity profile back to the one we want to actually do which is motorcycling.
And you see it calculated the route much much quicker because now it's calculating based on 25 points rather than on several thousand as was before.
So we'll change the colour now back to red, and click to close.
And now let's pan around the route and see if there are any discrepancies or changes. You see there are,
a couple of bits where it doesn't exactly match,
but from where I'm standing at the moment, or my point of view, those are only small,
small problems, so I would tend to leave those and just ride the route.
So from there, once again, rename the route,
and then I would right click on that and sent to my Garmin ready to be imported.
So that's how to plot a route in Google Maps and Navigate it on your Garmin device,
and a couple of other ways you can do that including reducing the number of points if necessary.