Points of Interest (POI) for your GPS

A lot of people are getting ready to hit the road this summer with their GPS as the means to travel the roads on a great summertime trip. Well a lot of people are also interested in having the most up to date lists of Points of Interest. Depending on when you updated the maps on your GPS, the Points of Interest listing can be quite old. By the time the maps get burned to a DVD and sold to you, they can already be several months out of date. Did you know that there are about 80+ new Starbucks added in the US every month? If Starbucks is a must have POI for you you’re missing out on a lot of them if you are even a few months out of date. Other key categories for traveling that readers are interested in are:

Campgrounds

Restaurant chain locations (Applebees, Cracker Barrel, etc)

Hotels

WalMarts (Some let you park overnight for free)

Below is a list of sites where you can get POI lists. Loading the POI onto Garmin units is easy with their POI loader. All you need is a PC or a Mac (yes, Mac compatible!) and their free POI Loader software. Got a TomTom? No problem, you can check TomTom's website for a lot of information on making your own POI collection or installing others.

GPS POI US - Lots of POI lists - some free some inexpensive. They just added a database of 77,000 School Zones in the US. The databases are well maintained and updated; this can be important when you consider that 80-100 new Starbucks are added every month! Also, while the full collections are generally not free, you get what you pay for. With GPS POI US you are not only getting more up to date POI lists, but the process of geocoding is more refined and can give you more accurate and reliable readings on locations of these points of interest, which can be critical for things like Red Light Cameras, and School zones. If you don't think that you need a Redlight camera POI database loaded, think again if you are in Maryland, Dallas, or Southern California. See their Google Map Mashup of Redlight camera positions below. (Click on the image to get their interactive version.)

Garmin has a list of POI suppliers.

TomTom maintains a similar list for TomTom compatible POI collections.

POI Factory - a broad collection of POI files that can be uploaded and shared. Free and many quite up to date.

GPSPassion has an extensive list of free POI lists at their site available for download and collaboration on.

GPS Waypoints is another member supported sharing forum with quite a few collections including a lot of international POI.

TomTom-ers shouldn't feel left out, as PocketGPSWorld has a database that's TomTom compatible.

I found this site interesting for those of you who want to get into the POI creation game: POI Editor, a slick website that helps you make your own collections and can save that collection in several formats including Garmin, TomTom and Mio.

Finally thought that this was cool Garmin Tour Guide capability. When using a compatible Garmin GPS, the unit associates an MP3 file with a POI, and plays it when you get close enough. Great way to hear a nice audio tour. Read More at GeoTourGuide You can even learn how to make your own Garmin Tour Guide (*.GPI) files from them too.

Do you have others? Leave a comment and list them below.

Enjoy your trip!

How Many POI are enough on your GPS? Check out our Post on the subject of POI Counts on GPS Units.

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Posted by Scott Martin at June 15, 2007 8:00 AM

Customer Feedback from GPS POI US, LLC
“Earlier this year, we shifted our business focus slightly and stopped further development of the POI files except for what you see on our website now.”

My comments:
On April 30, 2008 I paid $300 for a bundle of POIs. The POI's that I downloaded in 2008 contained dozens or hundreds of businesses under headings of Lodging, ATM/Bank, Food & Drink, Fuel, Shopping, Attractions, Entertainment, Hospital, Recreation, Transportation, Auto Services, Community, Garmin Dealers, Marinas, etc. When I tried to update in June 2009, the POI site would not recognize my e-mail address. The site now appears to be quite different from the one I used in 2008: the present site has only a very few specialized databases such as camera traffic lights, school zones, sporting events locations. The only Places of Business are Casinos and USPS Collection Boxes.

Posted by: meanderingman at June 26, 2009 5:11 PM

If you're going to mention POI Factory, you should link them as well. http://www.poi-factory.com/ -- a great, community site - the users make it what it is: a great place for information and POI files covering a broad spectrum of interests.

Posted by: Keith at June 15, 2007 10:20 AM

You should also link to http://www.geovative.com -- Using their GeoTours web application, you can quickly and easily create and download Garmin TourGuide POI files. It's the easiest app I've seen to do this.

Thanks, Steve

Posted by: Steve at July 27, 2007 9:15 AM