Whilst most rental cars will have Sat Nav (or GPS, as it’s known in the US), some cars won’t; and some may even have had their GPS disabled, to encourage you to rent an exorbitantly-charged standalone GPS unit at the rental counter.
As you’ll be travelling with your smartphone you already have a perfectly adequate (and probably better) alternative with your favourite mapping app, such as Google Maps, Apple’s Maps or Waze.
And if you get lucky with your rental car and it supports Apple’s CarPlay or Google’s Android Auto, then you’ll be able to connect your phone directly to the car and see the map and route displayed on your car’s display. Perfect.
However, whether you use CarPlay or Android Auto or just stick the phone on the windscreen or have a passenger hold the phone, you’ll need a data plan on your phone for the mapping app to work.
You may have a great UK mobile/cellular data plan that includes data in the US, or you may have pre-purchased a US SIM with a mobile/cellular data package (click here for more details on getting a US SIM for your trip), in which case your mapping app is good to go.
If you don’t have a US mobile/cellular data plan, or you want to conserve your US data plan usage, then just download a map of the Orlando area directly to your phone and use the mapping app offline in the US, without the need for any US data plan on your phone.
Of the major mapping apps, only Google Maps supports this feature – Apple’s Maps and Waze do not. You can find Google Maps’ instructions on how to download and use offline maps for the following phone types:
When using Google Maps in an offline mode you get the full mapping and route guidance functions, but, of course, without access to the internet (via your phone’s mobile/cellular data), you don’t get the live traffic conditions.
So, the calculation of any route is simply based on distance and projected speed, rather than taking into account any accidents, congestion, or road closures.
If you can grab some local Wi-Fi at the airport or the parks before you leave, you can at least get a good view of Google Maps’ best route to your house or hotel, taking into account traffic conditions. When you then lose Wi-Fi, the app will just start using your offline map to decide on the best route and guide you to your destination.
If you’ve connected your phone to your rental car through CarPlay or Android Auto, then the last thing to do before handing the rental car back over is to delete your phone’s details (and associated data) from the car’s system.