At the suggestion of forum users I wanted to start a thread about using GPS abroad.

US and British maps are probably the easiest to come by; i'm guessing; but what about other countries such as Japan, China, Russia, etc?

Have any of you guys used your n810; or other GPS units; with any successes to get around a country in which you don't speak the native language?

I'm sure there are many great resources to get maps, POIs, etc. for these areas so please post any information below.

I myself am taking a trip to Japan and am interested in anything you guys have on this.

Also please see this http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=16111
thread to see how I got here.

If you are going to a country with a different alphabet having a map that shows locations and streetnames written in the other alphabet helps a lot. Being technically illiterate in a strange country is a big pain. Last year I ventured into Russia and the first thing I did was throw away the map and metro map I had with only Roman characters and used the Cyrillic maps I found.

Best situation is if you can find one that shows BOTH. That way you can read the map easier when looking at it, and if you need to check a sign against your map you can also see the alternate graphics to help you compare.

Just peeked into the default map for Moscow in the N810 and it's all in roman characters. So wouldn't have helped me.

I actually studied the Russian alphabet before my second trip and things were much much easier second time around. Sure I didn't know what the words WERE for the most part but being able to even recognize the letters and signs makes a world of difference.

I have used this in Italy and Germany so far, I will try it in Portugal, UK and in Norway here in a month. So far for my experience I have had no issues with either the default map application or Maemo Mapper, both work great. Initially it took awhile to get the first sync but after that it only takes a few minutes (2-5, but mostly around 3).

How does Wayfinder Map determine which countries you have purchased routing for? Is there a way to enable this for the other maps as well? I mean if I have purchased routing for e.g. western europe and I want to use routing in the US.