Garmap announces Africa Series 2010 mapset

Garmap, Garmin's official mapping partner for Africa, has announced the second edition of its Garmap Africa Series map. According to Garmap's chief technology officer, Dr Chris Crozier, the new version of Garmap's mapping data moves from a pure A-to-B navigation service, to location-based services and value-adds.

The new release map data includes basic street-level changes following ongoing construction and modifications to South Africa's roadways, including new interchanges on the major highways and new roads.

2010 info

Garmap Africa Series 2010 also includes information on stadia, parking areas, fan parks, park and ride/walk sites, drop-off points, ticket offices and pedestrian walkways for sports fans and tourists visiting SA.

Certain points of interest include a additional information, such as photographs, brief descriptions and contact details identifiable on the GPS screen by icons.

Special features on Garmap's 2010 2nd Edition map include:

7,000 plus accommodation listings from SafariNow
127 selected Cape wine estates provided by Wine Magazine
113 PGA golf courses in South Africa and 63 others in Malawi, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Botswana and Zambia, provided by Compleat Golfer
10 skydiving clubs throughout South Africa
63 scuba diving sites provided by Divestyle Magazine
60 Child Welfare offices throughout South Africa, including contact details
South African business listings
Geo-tagged sites and POIs in the Kruger National Park and the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park based on Peter's Guide Books

"Users can also pair their Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones with compatible GPS units and, if a POI has a phone number attached to it, they can easily dial the venue to make a reservation at a restaurant, for example," Crozier points out.

Garmap Africa Series 2010 2nd Edition PC- and Mac-compatible DVDs can be purchased online from the Garmap website or at any official Garmap stockist and retail outlet for R20 (excluding map license).

Most map updates are R349 depending on the type of map installed on users' devices. However, if a new Garmin device with an older map data version was purchased on or after 1 January 2010, users will qualify for a free update of the equivalent map installed on their device.

"This is an extremely important year for South Africa and, as a result, the latest version of our map data is one of the most significant updates we've made to the Garmap Africa map products," Crozier concludes.

For more information, go to www.garmap.co.za.