14. Creating and Using Routes

Garmin's nuvi 700-series is the first nuvi to support multi-destination routing with route optimization. Many users, myself included, felt the lack of multi-stop routing on previous nuvis was a major omission, and I'm very pleased to see Garmin has added this feature to the nuvi 780.

The nuvi 780 can save up to 10 routes.

Figure 81: Accessing the Routes Feature

Creating, editing, and activating routes are all performed via the Routes menu. To access the Routes feature, tap on Where to? > Scroll down to page 2 > Routes.

Figure 82: First Time Using the Routes Feature

The first time the Routes icon is tapped the nuvi reports that no Routes have been created, and asks if we'd like to create a Route.

Figure 83: Adding Stops to the Route

The first step in creating a Route, or multi-stop trip, is adding a starting point. Tap Add New Start Point.

Adding addresses to a route is identical to the process for entering any other type of destination; you can use street addresses, POIs, recently found addresses, saved favorites, intersections, or coordinates as entries on a Route.

Figure 84: Creating the Route

Tapping on the green plus icon inserts another location to the route, while tapping on the red minus icon removes that location from the route.

Figure 85: Calculating the Route

Once all the desired locations have been added to the Route, tapping Next causes the nuvi to calculate the route. Route calculation is quick, taking no more than a few seconds.

Figure 86: Viewing the Route on the Map

Once the route has been calculated, the planned route is displayed on the map. Note that the last location in the Route is marked with a checkered flag. The nuvi also displays the distance and time for the planned Route.

Tap Save to store the Route and make it available for use and/or optimization.

Figure 87: Viewing a Saved Route

By default, the nuvi saves Routes using the starting and ending location names. You can rename the Route to something more significant, like "Family Trip To Disney Land", as well as re-order the stops by tapping Edit...

Or, tap the green Go! button to start navigating to the first location in the Route.

Figure 88: Reordering Stops Along A Route

One of the most significant new features on the nuvi 780 is the ability to "Optimize" routes.

Tapping on Optimally Reorder Points reorders the stops so that you are driving to each location in the most efficient manner. In other words, you're not driving back and forth or in circles, but making the taking the most logical order. This feature is especially helpful for drivers who regularly visit multiple locations in one trip, such as realtors, delivery drivers, and contractors.

You can also manually reorder the locations in a Route by tapping on Manually Reorder Points.

Recalculate allows you to change the route preference to calculate by faster time, shorter distance, or off road.

Tapping Delete erases the Route.

15. Navigating to a set of Coordinates

Figure 89: Routing to A Set of Coordinates

I was pleasantly surprised to see Garmin has included the ability to input a set of longitude/latitude coordinates as a destination address. I find this more useful than you might think. For example, some destinations don't have an official street address and need to be input as a set of coordinates. Routing to coordinates is also useful for Geocaching.

To route to a set of coordinates, tap Where to? on the Main Menu, and then scroll down to see the Coordinates icon, as shown above in figure 89.

Figure 90: Entering the Coordinates

Figure 91: Selecting the Coordinates Format

Garmin supports entering coordinates in several different formats.