From Google My Maps to the Garmin Zumo 660

It's taken a week or so, but I've finally gotten a handle on how to plan our routes for Japan using Google Maps (My Maps) and then exporting them to the Garmin Zumo 660 for use on the road. Interested? Let me lay the process out for you.

A pre-requisite to the process is that you must have a valid map for your ride area installed on your Garmin GPS. If you are in Australia and are looking for a Japan map, then look no further than the Open Street Map (OSM) Project. The map of the ride area is required on the Garmin device so that the Garmin Basecamp application can use it for route calculations. Yep, you guessed it, a second pre-requisite is to get Garmin Basecamp installed on your PC or Mac!

With these two pre-requisites in place, the process of My Maps -> Garmin is relatively straightforward. Firstly, create a route in My Maps following these simple steps:

1. Create a New Map in Google My Maps
2. Enter your start and finish points as "destinations" in the map.
3. For other roads that you really want to ride (eg. for us it is certain Skyline Highways in Japan) or any sites you want to visit, make sure you add a destination at the start and end of the road segment (or a destination at the site) and insert it into the destination list in the correct order for the intended route.
4. Drag the resulting route around the available roads until it follows the path you want to follow.

What you will have created in My Maps is a route that conforms to the exact roads that you want to ride on the day, but also has certain locations "locked in" as waypoints. These waypoints are the anchors for your day's ride.

Exporting to KML in Google My Maps

Now the process of getting the route onto the Garmin is pretty easy. Firstly, plug your GPS into your workstation and then run Basecamp.

1. Wait for Basecamp to download any maps from the GPS that it discovers
2. Go to My Maps, click on the elipsis '...' next to your list of destinations and select 'Export as KML" (see above).
3. When prompted, select to export just the directions, and to export as KML not KMZ.
4. Your browser will download and save the KML file to your harddrive.
5. Find the file in File Explorer and double click it to load it into Basecamp.
6. Find the KML file you just imported in the "My Collection" section on the left-hand-side of the Basecamp screen. 
7. Right click the directions entry shown in the Bottom left-hand view and select "Create Route from Track (see below).
8. Your new route will be created and can now be sent down to the GPS or SD Card.

Converting the directions in the KM file into a route.

Note that this last step - converting the track into a route - can only be correctly achieved if you have the GPS plugged in and an appropriate map available! 

What I love about this process is that you and your travelling buddies can collaborate as much as you like on your route through My Maos and Google Drive. When you are happy with it, one of you can export it to your GPS.

When you finally get out on the road, the Garmin GPS will start your journey following the route that you  set down. But the best thing is that if you get off-track (due to a missed turn or whatever) the Garmin will re-calculate the route to the next waypoint. It will make sure that it routes you through all the selected waypoints (checking them off as you go) no matter how far away from the original route fate takes you. It remains faithful to the initial route you laid down, but is smart enough to change plans if there is an issue.