MegSnow

Eek! Container on way and now us. Feeling apprehensive but relieved we are finally going to be getting on with our new life. First stop Social security numbers and mobiles. Where is the best place to buy a sat nav? OH has declined to hire one for $15 a day as we'll need one anyway.
So looking forward to gett off the plane

orly

Probably find a reasonable enough GPS selection at Best Buy or Future Shop. Looks like there are plenty of stores (Future Shop especially) not too far from the airport (assuming you're flying to Calgary Intl)

Should be able to get a decent one for under $150

haggis88

What hotel are you staying in, or do you have accommodation set up?

There's a tonne of shops within 5-10mins of the airport that will have "GPS" (get used to the lingo lol)

I got a decent Garmin Nuvi from Canadian Tire for about $100!

PS - I think Service Canada is closed on Saturdays, so you won't be getting your SINs until Monday morning...

it won't cause you much of a problem over the weekend, and if the Mobile Providers tell you they need one then tell them to get stuffed and go to another provider

Juggernaut1064

I think all should advise about cell (mobile) service providers, there are some good ones but some to avoid !

orly

To avoid:

Bell
Rogers
Telus
any of their sub brands

Piff Poff

So, thats almost all of them then

Piff Poff

Just remember, whatever you buy, if its not on sale, don't buy it, it will be on sale in the next couple of weeks and WooHoo enjoy the ride

Ontheroadoflife

When you sign up for a plan for mobiles...it is not like the UK!! long distance here ( same kind of rates as international at home) is like from Calgary to say Red Deer, ideally you want an inclusive fixed price with unlimited long distance...otherwise like my first month, your first bill will be like $400 a phone!!

withabix

Canadian Tire, if they have TomTom satnavs on offer. Make sure you get one with Lifetime Maps and RDS Traffic. Go for the VIA 1505 or 1535 and not the newer 'GO' models, as the newer ones use your phone's data plan for traffic.

The RDS traffic is good enough, certainly in Vancouver anyway. Note that the traffic only works in certain areas in Canada and not everywhere (unlike the UK and Europe).

Don't get a Magellan.

As for phones, if you've got a UK unlocked handset, keep that! Mrs Withabix has a Koodo sim-only cell number in her old Galaxy S3.

Piff Poff

No don't get a Magellan, we had a Tom Tom, then OH bought a larger screen Magellan, which was really painful to use and out of date, he then went and got a new gps with lifetime maps, I was so disappointed when I saw it was another Magellan, I use my phone, its better.

orly

Correct.

MegSnow

Thanks for your help, we're off this morning to pick one up after picking up the hire car. I have my iPhone as does DS so we just need SIM cards.
All happy this morning as thanks to time lag we're all up watching Liverpool, cheered DS up no end!

withabix

Might not still be true now, but when we arrived in October 2013, Koodo (owned by Telus) was the best option for Sim-only. You'll probably find them in a big Shopping Mall.

I'm not sure how Wind's network is developing, but at the time it was very limited in terms of coverage areas.

Caerus

Don't buy a dedicated sat nav. I live in calgary. Both Google maps and apple maps on my iPhone do navigation, are always up to date and work great.

withabix

Some people prefer dedicated satnavs.

Therefore I would say:

Do buy a dedicated sat nav...


As for Google Maps and Apple maps being up to date, well, they simply aren't. I use mapping data as part of my job and they have pretty much the same 'lag' in terms of up-to-date mapping data as the Lifetime Updates do on TomTom and Garmin.

Map source information is basically acquired from the same providers.

Also, Apple's map data is actually provided by....TomTom.

Google do collect some of their own data (e.g. by using StreetView cars), but they still use the same base data.