craig25

Hi im going to Dubai for a few weeks and renting a car.The rental company want £10 a day to rent a sat nav so it will equal around £160. Is there a cheaper way ? I am thinking about actually buying one withwith use maps already on.

fezzer

craig25

Thanks for your reply. Does here maps need data once im here ? I will buy a sim card with data once I arrive . I'll be driving from Abu Dhabi to Dubai

fezzer

You can run it completely without data. If you turn data on you'll get access to live traffic, and a larger database of destinations to search for. I've used it travelling around the world without data though. Just remember to download the maps in advance as they can be several hundred megabytes per country.

scrubbedexpat141

Get a sim card and use Google Maps. I think I saw tourist sim cards at the airport in Dubai recently but didn't pay much attention.

Roads change and move too much for traditional sat navs to be perfect but Google Maps does a great job.

You'll not need to look at it once you're on the main road from AD to Dubai though.....long, straight and pretty dull.

craig25

Thanks for your replies.I've heard its straight forward how ever I really just need it to find my apartment and for places to go while I am here .I find cars are a lot cheaper to rent here and the petrol is half the price than a UK so I would think it will be cheaper than getting taxis everywhere .

Millhouse

yup, it will be.

scrubbedexpat141

But then you can't have a drink. (Serious)
Also, depending how far you go, taxis are filthy cheap. (Serious)
Don't forget as well in Dubai the metro is really well connected to everything useful and filthy cheap and the best possible service in the world, according to some.... (Heavily laced with sarcasm)

Millhouse

I don't find taxis in Dubai that cheap.

scrubbedexpat141

Basically a tenner or twelve ish quid to go from from home to marina which is 15 miles isn't that cheap?

TFL say that cabs in London must take a fare "Unless they have a good reason not to, drivers must: Accept any hiring up to 12 miles" They don't even have to cover the distance
It also says to expect the minimum for 6 miles to be £24 - £31. Double it to just be really generous and then compare again.

Millhouse

A hire car is 100dh/day and petrol is basically free.

scrubbedexpat141

Tourists won't spend 100dhs a day on taxis.

archie159

In addition to Here, there are other good offline SATNAVs (more on Android, but also on Apple) - mapsme is great, sygic is also supposed to be good, and both allow you to download maps. So does Mapfactor Navigator, though I have only tried that one on Android. I travel a lot across MEA, and find they all have pluses and minuses, so keep several installed (agree that googlemaps is normally excellent, and one can also download offline maps for it, which I didn't see mentioned above). A final trick if you don't have roaming data is to connect to the free airport wifi before you depart and find your route to the destination - if you use googlemaps or waze then they will download the latest traffic (and in the case of Waze, the entire route), and you can then use them both offline when travelling - though if you divert a long way off-route, Waze will then crash if it cannot connect to data to find a new route.

Even if you do end up using taxis, its still worth having one installed on your phone for when you get the "I've only been in the UAE for 5 days" driver who can barely find his way out of the airport...