Since we've been talking about moving waypoints into mapping
software, I thought I'd mention this little freebie that I ran across awhile
back. I don't recall it coming up here before.
Visit http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/gmaptogpx.
Despite all the author's disclaimers on the page and elsewhere on his site, I
haven't had any problems with this. In my experience it works as advertised.
I've used it on both Firefox (at home) and Internet Exploder (at
work).
Basically, you put his "bookmarklet" on your browser. Then you do
a search or generate driving directions in Google Maps (not Google Earth). Click
the bookmarklet, and you've got a text representation of a GPX file of your
waypoints or directions. You can then copy and paste it into some text editor,
save it with a GPX extension, and you're good to go. You should be able to load
it into just about anything that accepts GPX files. I've used it in Garmin's
MapSource and ExpertGPS. I haven't tried it elsewhere, but it looks
like it ought to work for EasyGPS and for uploading to gc.com's new "find caches
along a route", and probably lots of other stuff as well.
Where I find it useful is in loading the route into MapSource and
then downloading the route into my GPS. It's even easier than the MapSource
route creation tool.
This
thing will also generate full-tilt track files, but it will pretty much generate
a trackpoint for every bend in the road. The files are HUGE, so use it with
caution. Probably best for trail hikes rather than vehicular
routes.
I
hope some of you find this a worthwhile addition to your
arsenal.
Steve
Team
Tierra Buena