What use is the Trip Log?

[OldEssexMan]

I have been using my 550 since 2007 for finding my way around UK. I don't create routes, I just ask the unit to take me from A to B. When loading new speed camera alerts from Pocket GPS World I always delete the Trip Log rather than save it but I have no idea what the Trip Log is for. I'm sure it has many uses, perhaps someone can enlighten me? Thanks.

[sussamb]

Some simply want a record of where they've been, me I've never used it.

[rbentnail]

I routinely delete my trip logs. I rarely use them for anything. I recall one time I did when I made a wrong turn and found something interesting by chance but now I just tap the vehicle icon and note where I am at the moment in Saved Places. I use Google Earth to view the exact spot I want to go and can route to it later.

[Steve W]

I document every major motorcycle ride and most hikes via a track, which is what the trip log actually is. These tracks go back almost 20 years. They show me where that weird pass was in Austria I rode in 2007 and where exactly I took the picture of the wild flowers in the Rockies in 2012. I also use the tracks to geo-tag all of my travel photos, something that a smart phone will do automatically but my serious camera doesn't. Tracks/trip logs are the second most useful function of a GPS in my opinion.

[jfheath]

Ditto - what Steve W said.

I download the trip logs every couple of months (there is a limit to how many it stores, and after a while it deletes the older files to make room for the newer). I use a mapping program (MemoryMaps) on which I have many Ordnance Survey maps and these import the tracklogs directly, displaying all of the log information of where I have been and when. In the early days, before I got a camera with GPS, I would use the track log and a bit of nifty software to add DataTags to photographs - it could obtain my coordinates from the trip logs at the time the photo was taken.

Now - it is a historical record mainly of our trips - which as time goes by, can tend to merge into each other. It is also nice to identify roads that I have never ridden before, or when I come across a real beauty of a road, by sheer chance, the log tells me exactly which way I went.

Incidentally, you can do the same thing with Basecamp to record trips, and also get the elevation and speed profiles of the route. I just prefer to use the OS maps.