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Rank beginner: A little guidance requested

Former Member
Former Member
Warning: Virgin Basecamp user. Please be kind to me.

In a few weeks time I'll be making an 8,000 km/5,000 mile journey in our motorhome through eight countries. And I've installed Basecamp to let it help me.

I tried creating our journey in the Trip Planner, and immediately came unstuck. I know precisely the date/time that our trip starts; I'll be parked in the Ferry port, waiting to board. From here, I know precisely the locations we want to visit, and the order we want to visit them, but we have no idea when we'll get to any of these points. We don't have an end date for our trip; we're retired and travelling in our motorhome. We might even get back home some day.

So I decided to create our trip as a set of route segments. My first segment crosses five countries and ends at a friends house in Denmark. About 500km in total. From there, we'll cross into Sweden, then Norway heading for Heddal Stave Church. And so on, for several weeks, maybe months.

Does this sound a workable solution?
Will I be able to upload the route segments to my Camper 760 as individual routes?

I'm very conscious of the fact that you make most of your mistakes when you start using new software, so some guidance would be gratefully received.
If you live along our proposed route, you can come and have lunch with us in the motorhome!
  • 0
    I've just returned from a 2 week trip in the US, all planned on BaseCamp and also used for all my trips from the UK to the rest of Europe. I don't use the trip planner app in BaseCamp, preferring instead as you seem to have settled on to create individual routes. Having done all the planning I then send them all to my device. I've never had an issue doing it this way.

    Just a couple of points FYI. Your device may stall trying to deal with routes that are 'too long/complicated' (exact details can't be determined as devices/routes vary). If so you may need to split some routes into two. Trial and error is the only way to determine this unfortunately, but generally I find routes under 300 miles aren't an issue. Longer routes occasionally are.

    Be careful when positioning points on your route. A common mistake amongst those new to this sort of software is not zooming in far enough when placing points, so they end up on the wrong side of a divided road. This leads to what appears to be weird routing since you need to invariably go past the point, turn around somehow and then having hit the point somehow route to get back to the other side again!
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member
    Thanks for the reassurances, and hints.

    I should be OK on the longer stretches, as I'm happy to let the satnav itself plan those long routes.

    We are fortunate that each segment is either a simple/long route, or a short route with plenty of stopping places.

    I've fallen into the habit of zooming right in when placing way points, as I don't know which is the actual location, the pointed end of the icon, or the mysterious square that appears slightly to the right of the icon.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member
    So, the point of the icon marks the spot...

    What's the little square trying to tell me? I've hunted around on the Web, and found a few references to the icon with the little square, but no one seems to know what the little square signifies.

    Perhaps it's like the soldier and the square:

    The top brass were coming to visit the camp, and the soldier had been detailed to refresh the white lines on the base's roads. Finishing up, he stepped back to admire his work. He knocked over his pot of white paint. The brass were due soon, and there was no time to clean up the mess. So the soldier quickly spread the paint into a square.

    Visiting his camp on it's open day, some 30 years later, the soldier was amused to see that his square was still there... freshly painted!
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    Think it's simply so you don't get confused between it and your normal mouse pointer.