Garmin BaseCamp

Outdoor leisure or business activities such as travels, hiking, and such are better if they are well planned.

This program is designed to help you planning those kinds of activities. It may sound like a good idea, but using this program for that purpose has its drawbacks. First of all, at startup, the program shows a screenshot of a video you can play to start using the program. Nevertheless, nothing happens when clicking on the Play button. Also, the program shows a wizard with different options that supposedly will help you with your first steps but again, when clicking on the Video tutorials option, an error message appears on the web browser, saying that the page cannot be found. Thus, you will need to learn how to use it by yourself.

Beside these initial problems, the program does exactly what it promises. You can create a route to travel using it. Nevertheless, the program includes only a very basic world map which shows only general data about each country and region. If you want to get a more detailed view, including roads, highways, streets and satellite images, you will need to purchase and install the corresponding maps. You can also create a New adventure, which is a leisure trip plan, but again, you will need the maps. On top of that, the Trip planner function is not available, as well as other features.

As you can see, the program alone is not very useful. To take advantage of all its functions, you will need to purchase maps and/or compatible devices. Nevertheless, you can try it to see it for yourself.