IMPORTANT NOTE:

We have made some extensive improvements to the directory itself and the way it interacts with the Garmin GPS devices. Even if you’ve installed it before, please follow these instructions. The installation process may be a little different.

Garmin's POILoader has also been updated to v2.5.2 as of March 2008. Our files have been optimized to work with this newer version of POILoader and we highly recommend you update your POILoader to this new version if you haven't done so already. You can download this latest version of POILoader directly from Garmin at the following link:

http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=927

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

In order to use this CoolRVToyz Custom Points-of-Interest (POI) List, you will need to install one or more of the lists on your Garmin GPS device. This is a simple process and will only take a few moments. If you have a Garmin Streetpilot C500 series or above or a Garmin Nuvi 300 series or above, your GPS probably has enough free memory and you can skip to the installation steps and begin. If you have a Streetpilot C330/340 (with SD Card slot), Nuvi 200, or any of the other Garmin models with limited memory, please read the following before installing. If you’re already familiar with installing Custom POI’s to your GPS using POILoader, then you may want to skip right to the good stuff.

Garmin Models With Limited Memory

Some Garmin models, like the Nuvi 200 series units are very limited in free memory. That doesn’t mean you can’t use our lists, it just means you have to be selective as to what you load, or add more memory in the form of an SD memory card. Our RV Parks & Campgrounds List is very large and will not all fit at the same time on these GPS models. It will be necessary for you to limit what you install, or add in an SD memory card in order to use the list. You have several ways you can do this. We discuss a few of them here.

When you installed the RV Parks & Campgrounds List to your computer, the installation process created a folder on your hard drive (C:) named C:\CoolRVToyz\Garmin\RV Parks & Campgrounds. This folder contains additional folders that each have the actual .GPX files in them. If you look at these .GPX files you’ll see it’s easy to tell what’s in them by their names. (Note: You may not see the .GPX file extension if you have file extensions turned off in your Windows Explorer)

These .GPX files are what POILoader uses to install the Custom POI’s to your GPS. If you follow the installation instructions below, POILoader will try to load all of these .GPX files to your GPS. If you don’t have enough free memory in your GPS, that will overflow your memory and the load will fail before all the POI’s are loaded. If you see a screen similar to the following while trying to install to your GPS, it means you’ve run out of memory:

Note the statement near the bottom of the Error Information: box that says, “There is not enough space on the disk.” This is a bit misleading. What it usually means is you GPS has run out of memory while trying to install the list.

There are several actions you can take if you run out of memory. The easiest is to install an SD memory card in your unit and load the list to the SD card instead of main memory. At CoolRVToyz, we sell a variety of pre-loaded SD cards specific to your Garmin GPS. In addition, you can purchase a blank SD card from the store of your choice and load it yourself using POILoader. We recommend a minimim of a 1GB SD memory card and have tested our list on SD cards as large as 8GB on most models. Check with Garmin if you're unsure of the maximum size card your unit can support.

Option 1: Purchase an SD Memory Card for your GPS.

1. The list requires as little as 40MB of memory as of Revision 2.02, depending on your GPS model, so almost any SD Memory card will do. The smallest we recommend is 1GB for future expansion, but if you have an old 128 or 256MB lying around it is most likely large enough.
2. Make sure the SD card is blank
3. Turn off your GPS and insert the SD card.
4. When you get to the section below where POILoader is finding your device, follow the instruction for loading onto an optional SD Memory card.

Note: Beginning with Garmin's POILoader v2.5.2, you can now load onto an SD Memory card without attaching your GPS to your computer. If you have an SD memory card reader/writer in your computer, you can insert the card and install to that drive by selecting Custom Folder (Advanced) from the second screen. See the POILoader help documentation for more information.

Option 2: Loading One of the Existing Subfolders or .GPX files in C:\CoolRVToyz\Garmin\RV Parks & Campgrounds\GPX Files

1. If you can get the parks and services you want by loading one of the predefined subfolders or .GPX files in C:\CoolRVToyz\Garmin\RV Parks & Campgrounds\GPX Files, then this is the method you want to use. We tried to break the parks and services up into logical categories. For example, maybe all you care about at the moment is just the RV Parks in the Eastern US. If that’s the case, you can simply load those with POILoader by selecting that subfolder.
2. To load one of the subfolders instead of the entire list, follow the installation instructions to Step 4. At Step 4, instead of browsing and selecting the C:\CoolRVToyz\Garmin\RV Parks & Campgrounds\GPX Files folder, browse down one additional folder level and select the subfolder you want to load. For example, to load the Campgrounds from the Eastern US only, you would browse down and select the “Campgrounds (US East)” folder instead. That will only load RV Parks & Campgrounds from east of the Mississippi River.

   

   This only works if everything you want is in that one subfolder. If you want to load some parks from the Eastern US, some from the Western US and some of the RV Services, you will need to use one of the other methods described here.

Option 3: Move some of the .GPX files to another folder.

1. Create another folder on your hard drive and name it C:\My Custom POIs or something similar. The name isn’t important, as long as you know what it is.
2. Copy the .GPX files from the folders in C:\CoolRVToyz\Garmin\RV Parks & Campgrounds\GPX Files to your newly created folder. Be sure to only copy the ones you really need. Copying too many will overflow your GPS memory. We recommend you create subfolders in your C:\My Custom POIs folder similar to those in C:\CoolRVToyz\Garmin\RV Parks & Campgrounds\GPX Files and copy the .GPX files you want into the subfolders. We do that for 2 reasons; first, the subfolder names become your category names when you’re searching in CUSTOM POIs in your GPX; and second, the Garmin units only allow a maximum of around 30 .GPX files in a folder. The others over 30 will still get loaded, but you won’t see them on the GPS display. Using subfolders alleviates this problem.
3. Once you have your folder created and loaded with the .GPX files you want to load, you can go ahead and follow the loading instructions below, with one exception. When you get to the step on Step 4 where POILoader is asking you, “Please select the directory where the data files can be found”, you will need to select the folder you just created (C:\My Custom POIs) instead of the C:\CoolRVToyz\Garmin\RV Parks & Campgrounds\GPX Files folder.

Option 4: Using Manual Mode to Limit the List

1. If you don’t want to create another folder and copy files, or if the predefined subfolders won’t give you the parks you want, you can use POILoader’s Manual Mode to decide which files are loaded and which aren’t. We don’t recommend this because it’s slow and tedious, but it will work if you prefer to use it.
2. When you get to the installation Step 4 where POILoader is asking you, “Please select the directory where the data files can be found”, go ahead and select the C:\CoolRVToyz\Garmin\RV Parks & Campgrounds\GPX Files folder as it states in the installation instructions.
3. Instead of selecting “Express (recommended)” for the mode, select “Manual” instead. This will give you an additional dialog screen as seen here:

   

   This dialog will appear for every .GPX file in the list (there are almost 100 of them!). For each one you DO NOT want to install on your GPS you will need to check the check box next to “Ignore this file?” This will cause POILoader to skip that file and not install it on your GPS. None of the files contain proximity alerts as this time, so you do not check the box called: “This file contains proximity alerts points.”

Installing To Your Garmin GPS

Please follow the steps below to install to your GPS and begin enjoying this product.

1. For Garmin GPS devices, you will need the latest freely available Garmin POILoader program. This can be downloaded from Garmin at the following web address:

   http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=927

If you haven’t already done so, download POILoader and install it on your computer. Even if you’ve downloaded it before, you may need to update it. Garmin released version 2.5.2 on March 28, 2008. If you have an older version, we recommend up download the newest one at this web address.

2. Plug your GPS into your computer using the USB cable and run POILoader by clicking the button and choose All Programs, Garmin, POILoader. The following dialog will be the first you see:

   

   Click Next and you'll see the following screen. If you don't see this screen it means you have not updated your POILoader to the latest version. Cancel this installation and update POILoader now. Our files are optimized for POILoader v2.5.2 or higher and may not display correctly on your GPS if you do not update POILoader.

   

   For these instructions we are assuming you have connected your GPS to your computer using the USB cable. For this you will want to select Garmin Device and click Next. The other 2 options are advanced and beyond the scope of these instructions. See the POILoader help documentation for more information.

   Wait a few moments for POILoader to locate your GPS Device and display it in the “Device:” text box.

   

   If POILoader doesn’t find your device, make sure your USB cable is securely connected and Click the “Find Device” button. If you still can’t find your GPS device, contact Garmin Support. POILoader must be able to find your GPS device before you can install this CoolRVToyz product using the USB cable.

   When POILoader has found your GPS device, it will show up in the Device: text box similar to what’s shown in the dialog above. Some GPS’s will show up as a Drive Letter (as in the dialog below) and some will show the GPS model name. Some of the Nuvi’s show up as Nuvi (D:\) instead of GARMIN (D:\). Of course, your drive letter may not be D:\ based on the number of drives in your computer.

   If you have an SD Memory card in your device and you want to install to that device instead of the GPS’ main memory, you’ll need to change the device at this point. Click the down arrow to the right of the device selection box. You see a list of your available devices. Your SD Memory card will show up as a Removable Disk.

   

   Select the removable disk to install to the SD Memory card instead of the GPS’ main memory.

   




3. Click Next and POILoader will display the following dialog.

   

   Make sure the “Install new custom POI’s onto your device” radio button is selected and click NEXT for the following dialog.

4. In this dialog, you will need to decide whether you want to load the entire list of all RV Parks and Campgrounds, one of the Regional Lists, or some other subset of the List. The entire list requires about 40MB of available memory. If you have a GPS unit with less memory than that, you will need to go follow the instructions on Page 1 to load only part of the list at a time. The remaining instructions here assume you are loading the entire list.

   

5. Click the BROWSE button and locate the C:\CoolRVToyz\Garmin\RV Parks & Campgrounds\GPX Files folder where you installed the Garmin GPX files.

   In the following dialog, I’ve installed all the Garmin models on my computer so you can see what the folders look like. Select the one appropriate to your device. If you only installed the folders for your GPS onto your computer, you won’t see the extra folders as you do here.

   

   Select the appropriate Folder and clock the OK button:

6. Your dialog should now have the C:\CoolRVToyz\Garmin\RV Parks & Campgrounds\GPX Files folder in the textbox and look like this:

   

7. Select the units of distance and speed you prefer.

   We recommend using the Express Mode, but you can change that if you desire to manually control the installation. See the instructions on Page 2, “Option 4: Using Manual Mode to Limit the List” for more information.

8. Click Next.

PLEASE NOTE:

The CoolRVToyz Ultimate RV Parks Lists are quite large, especially the entire list, so POILoader can take as much as 10 or 15 minutes to install it to your GPS, depending on the speed of your USB port and your GPS model. You may also see POILoader blank out or even say it is no longer responding. This is normal. Give it time and it will complete.

So please, be patient.

9. Once the load is complete, you will see the following Finish dialog.

   

   Click the Finish button and unplug your GPS.

Additional Load Method for Advanced Users

If you are comfortable with copying files directly to your GPS you can bypass using POILoader altogether. We have also included a folder at C:\CoolRVToyz\Garmin\RV Parks & Campgrounds\GPI Files that contains a folder structure and POI.GPI file that can be copied directly onto your Garmin GPS or SD Memory card. Just copy the entire GARMIN\POI folder to the root of your GPS or SD Card and you're ready to go.

Some Notes About Displaying the POI’s on your GPS.

Most Garmin models will only display 50 POI’s at a time. This is not a limitation of the List, but rather one of your GPS. They’re all there, they just can’t be displayed more than 50 at once.

If you press CUSTOM POIs, then All Categories twice on your GPS you’ll get a combined listing of all the parks and services at once. It might look like there are duplicate entries in the list, but that isn’t what’s happening. Because we categorized the list, the same entries are in more than one category.

For Example, a Commercial RV Park in Missouri will be in the Missouri List and in the Commercial RV Parks list. By displaying all categories, you are displaying the park twice because it is in 2 categories. That’s why your final Congratulations dialog said you loaded a larger number (63572 as of version 1.3, and growing) parks where there are only about 50,365 parks and services in the list as of version 2.01. Some are loaded in more than 1 place. We strive to keep duplicates out of the list (and there are still a few, but not as many as it looks like in this mode).

You can use your GPS’ NEAR feature to display a list of the parks near another location instead of where you are. See your Garmin documentation for more information.

Most Garmin GPS’ display our POI’s under the Custom POIs entry. You find this by selecting Extras from the Where to? menu. For example: (Taken from a Nuvi 200)

à

à

Other Garmin GPS’ like the Nuvi 3xx family still display our POI’s under the Custom POIs entry, but you will find it by selecting Favorites from the Where to? menu instead of Extras. For example: (taken from a Nuvi 350)

à

The list now has more information about the parks than ever before, like descriptions, amenities, rate information and more. This information can be accessed on most Garmin GPS’ by pressing the MORE button at the bottom of the screen while viewing the selected park. For example: (taken from a Nuvi 780)

à

à

Once again, the Nuvi 3xx family is a bit different; there isn’t a MORE button on the Nuvi 3xx. The extra information is accessed by pressing the scroll down arrow as needed. For example: (taken from a Nuvi 350)

à à

à à