Garmin GPS Maps

for those who have a garmin gps , free maps of samoa can be downloaded below, for mapsource

http://rcmaps.googlepages.com/samoa_maps

it is a work in progress & a lot of effort has been out in by roy & myself so please take tracklogs and email to roy at

rklchan@gmail.com

with anything that may help us further these maps . ie more street names , more tourist waypoints ( all that are on there now have been entered or verified by me),
tracklogs especially of savai'i roads - it is actually quite fun in a rental car trying not to go over the same road twice ( all in the interests of mapping of course)

I have to express a strong warning to use these maps in any way, because some of the roads marked do not exist, other (existing) roads are not shown at all and others are not where they are marked. Especially East-Upolu is completey wrong.

Shame on those who did these maps - the least thing one can expect that you double check with other maps available. How can you pretend that you verified anything? You might have traveled in Savai'i but obviously not in Upolu.

#1 is a bit harsh - He did say "it is a work in progress". He did say he wanted feedback for corrections, and finally he did say its free.

Look at that website where the maps are. They say expressly:
'# Re-aligned large sections of highways especially on Eastern Upolu island'
and
'Updated maps on Upolu Island thanks to tracklogs from Burgla (from NZ Open GPS Maps) who recently returned from a trip to Samoa using these maps'.

And this guy just never went these roads, because they really do not exist. Simple as that. There is no through road right on the north-eastern coast of Upolu and there has never been one or even could be one (because of a mountain). Instead there is a big nice east-west highland road in the middle of the island, many miles away from the coast, from Samusu to Le Mafa Pass. That road exists for more than 15 years now and it is shown on every map of the island. Only not on theirs.

Of course they can be in error. That's fine. However one single simple look on any other Samoa map would have told them that they are wrong. And there are more mistakes.
They pretend that these are tracklogs. And exactly that is the point. They lie. That is why I say 'shame'.

i hope you are looking at version 3 which has that piece of road removed
- as i said when i put my original post up, it is a work in progress
& if you want i can email disbelivers the tracklogs, and waypoints.
the whole purpose of airing these free maps is to improve the accuracy of them, and the
only way community maps get better is through feedback. you will not find any other
garmin gps maps for samoa in the public domain, & i have had some correspondence
with leoo polutea from the Ministry of Natural Resources & Environment

leoo.polutea@mnre.gov.ws

trying to get accurate information on which to improve these maps, but he was not very
forthcoming. once again i must stress these maps are the only ones you can get for free,
off the internet & we don't mind constructive criticism, but we would prefer more tracklogs
& names etc to improve the accuracy, instead of being called liars

More tracklogs and names could never improve something that is so false at the start already.

I look at the map that comes up when I click on the link in your post above. And yes, it says version R3, August 2008. And regarding East Upolu it is all wrong.

But we might get somewhere now. You say that you removed a piece of road from the map you had before? Well, I seems that you removed the existing piece of road and left the non existing ...

There are other road maps for Samoa available online and free of charge. I found at least three of them. The one I link to in my post above is on the official website of the Samoa Tourism Authority (Visitors Bureau). It is in the public domain, free of charge, all up-to-date and correct to the tiniest detail. Why don't you at least double check your maps with these easy accessible existing maps?

I suggest that you better check your logs and waypoints yourself as they are obviously either wrong by themselves or they are not correctly represented on the map. Don't you get it? You did not drive along the north-east coast of Upolu ... There is no road. The one on your map does not exist. And whatever you might email me as proof will not make it exist.

'Work in progress' does not excuse such obvious and easy detectable mistakes, especially not when you brag with updating and having used these maps for your trip. Your memory must have told you that you did not drive along the coast there ... It is at least around 25 miles of coastline we are talking about here. You drove through the highland, passing the lake at the dam, with high rugged mountains towards the sea and no sight of the ocean at all. Because that is what you saw on that road - if you ever drove there.

You did not drive along the north-east coast of Upolu ... There is no road

The one on your map does not exist

And whatever you might email me as proof will not make it exist

I'd say that just about settles it right there...(!)

thank you all for your valued feedback - if you could please send me gps co-ordiates as to where the road stops that would be excellent.
as far as i am aware these are the only maps that you can download onto a garmin gps , that show any roads in samoa at all, so all feedback
is greatly appreciated, so that we can improve them. these are community driven maps so the more people that get invoved with the more feedback,
and more waypoints the more accurate they will become.
i have not & can not claim to have been into the disputed area , however i did tracklog richardson rd ( named after the governor general
who 'gave away' my grandmother, when she got married in 1924 in apia) & tracklogged & circumnavigated upolu, apart from a small section in the northwest,from
samamatau to lefaga bay. in the interests of accuracy i once again ask for help with these maps, and am awaiting patiently, if some one can direct me to some accurate
data (ie gps co-ordinates of waypoints of natural ,manmade & tourist venues, hotels , fales etc). if you can direct me to some other maps that _can be downloaded onto
a garmin gps, that would also be appreciated.

EDIT

i see why you think the way you do now - i have had a look at roys 'flyer' on his website - you have obviously been misled by the flyer ( which shows incorrectly a road right around upolu).
if you download the maps & open them with the 'mapsource' program (garmins proprietry mapping program), you will see that these errors are now corrected ( thanks to my tracklogs). thanks for pointing this out - i will email roy now

Edited by: burgla

Edited by: burgla

Okay, the map that you see on the website is not the map that you get in the download. At least by now. I just downloaded the very last version again and saw that everything is alright now, with Richardson Rd. and without the costal road. Good. I suggest that you change the preview as well in the 'flyer'.

I hope that other travelers can help you with more tracklogs and such. Do not expect much from Samoans here though. Besides a very small number of survey and/or road construction people nobody has GPS equipment. I wonder if you could buy it in Samoa at all ... Samoans are not really fond of maps, as I found out. They usually know quite well where they are so they hardly need one.

thank you - i have put these maps up to help visitors to samoa & as i have said
earlier it is quite fun to drive around not going on the same road twice.
i think it adds another dimension to visiting somewhere, as you are not looking at
the same veiws all the time & going on a different road you see somthing you haven't seen before. cool ay

As an aside to this topic 'Garmin GPS Maps' I now see that google is
starting to allow individuals to make their own maps ( for googles use eventually)
and that samoa is part of that - any one who wants to share there knowledge of this
wonderful country can now do so on the following link -

http://www.google.com/mapmaker

the more people that contribute the quicker decent maps of samoa will become available,
so all of you residents & tourists alike - get stuck in