Theo
Touring Panpsychist
{snip}... A fellow biker told me the other day that the only way to do that is to purchase Garmin's Mapsource, download the softwre to my laptop, then create the desired route using Mapsource's "force route' feature and transfer that route to my GPS...{snip}.
Steven,
My first reaction to this was "Horse-Hockey"! However, I am unfamiliar with the Nuvi 1390T's capabilities and cannot speak from experience. Intuitively, it seems that a direct transfer will work using most newer Garmin units, but here are a few things you can try to see if it will work with your GPS...
1) See if you can get your internal Garmin storage to be seen by a PC/Mac. With your GPS turned off, connect the 1390 to your computer using the proper USB cable. Then turn on the GPS. It should go into the connection mode instead of the regular start up mode. Look at "My Computer" (Win PC) or the Desktop (Mac) after it is finished booting-up in communication mode and check if you see the Garmin's storage device mounted as a (removable) disk (see my earlier post for a PC example). It may take a minute or so after start-up for the storage device to appear. If your computer can see the storage, you are good to go.
2) Install the FREE Garmin Communicator Browser plug-in found on THIS page. There are versions for PC and Mac covering the IE, Firefox and Safari browsers. This plug-in essentially allows websites to recognize your connected Garmin storage as a destination to which they can download files.
3) Go to MapQuest and create a route to somewhere. Then follow the directions in my earlier post to download and import the route to your Nuvi.
Let us know how you make out...