This is nothing to do with the 'Waypoints limits' (which I discuss in another article) but its about giving each point a bit of personal space so it can do a better job. I think one of the main 'killer features' of GPS - that nothing else can replicate - is the Next ability. That is, fields such as Distance to Next or Time to Next. When following a route its extremely useful to know how far it is to the next navigational instruction - if its say more than 1km away then (on a bike) you know you can enjoy other aspects of your ride - the scenery, or the company - and don't need to pay any attention to the GPS. If, on the other hand, its less than 400m or so, you know that there is navigation coming up and at least part of you will be looking out for signage etc.

Obviously, its also very useful to know what the navigational instruction is going to be, when you get there. The GPS is very good at this too, especially in Follow Road or autorouting mode, but I don't fully trust this mode and much prefer the extra control I get with Off Road or direct mode. In this mode the Guidance Text is quite helpful but personally I don't find it quite worth the screen real estate it uses, so I have it turned off. Instead I embed turn instructions - L, R, SO etc - into the waypoint names. With the appropriate fields selected, I end up with a map page like the one shown left - you can see here that the next turn is 202m ahead and the waypoint name shows it will be a left turn. Actually, this picure is a bad example because you can see the turn on the map anyway - imagine a screen where the turn is further away and so the shape is not yet shown on the map. (To be more precise, L could be one of several things - really it only indicates a left option of a choice of 2 or more. This is because the waypoint name is limited to 6 characters - because on this Garmin more than 6 chars displays much smaller - of which at least 2 chars will be a unique ID - in this case, that's the A2 bit. It only leaves 2 or 3 characters at most for the actual instruction.)

So my point about Less is More has to do with getting as much advance notice of the next turn instruction as possible. If your route goes along a 5km winding lane and then turns right at the end - try not to put too many 'shape' or 'check' waypoints along that lane. Especially don't put any near the end, because if you do, these just mask the only important waypoint, which is the turn instruction. Sometimes a 'check' point is helpful - especially shortly after a 'bear left' type of turn, say 100m or 200m down the road. Sometimes a 'shape' point is nice - if the road is wandering a long way off the 'direct' line - and if a road bends sharp right and then hits a junction its very tempting to waypoint the bend so that the junction shape looks correct. In this last case, its best to resist the temptation to insert a shaping waypoint, because it will simply prevent you getting good advance notice of the turn instruction.

Francis Cooke

Living with a Garmin: The Waypoints Limitation
Living with a Garmin: Track, Route or Autoroute
Living with a Garmin: Struggling with GPX
Living with a Garmin: Battery Runtime and Etrex Jitter
Living with a Garmin: Living with Metroguide Maps
Living with a Garmin: Declutter the Page Sequence
Living with a Garmin: Screens you don't see every day
Living with a Garmin: Less is More

Francis Cooke's Garmin Menu Map (pdf)