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Many RTW (Round the World) Travelers have the problem of keeping track of their journeys around the planet.

Of course you will keep a notebook, write a blog, shoot thousands of photos or mark your tracks on a small world map you carry around with you.

That’s usually okay, but what if you have a hangover, get lost, laze too long at that paradise beach or even lose track of what day it is?

How good that modern technology can help you out to monitor your trips and display it in graphic ways in popular applications:

You can avoid the above mentioned gaps and even months down the road you won’t have difficulties to tell, where you’ve been at a certain point of your trip. Not to talk about the manifold options what you can do with the collected data at a later stage.

The Good

Meet the GPS Tracker - a smart and small GPS device which can record your trips wherever you go, on the train, onboard a ship, while you sleep, get drunk, climb a mountain or float/tube down a river.

It’s basically a small GPS receiver, which logs and records your position constantly or over selected recording intervals.

Usually they are only palm-sized and you could store them in your back pack or mount to your vehicle.

Depending on the storage of the device this can account for weeks or even months of data, which can then be easily dumped to your PC via Bluetooth or USB connection. Import functions for standard spreadsheets or Google Earth help you to show your location at any recorded date on graphical maps or from a satellite view.

With additional software you can even do road or route planning or map your existing data into Street Directories.

So far the theory. Sounds really promising, doesn’t it?

The Ugly

There seem to be some downsides too. When reading some reviews on the web, many users claim, that the batteries don’t last very long.

Some devices go empty after 10 hours, even though the manufacturer claims at least a week of battery capacity. Others can’t get a signal (satellite out of reach) in buildings or even when in a car or on a bus.

Some devices use too few satellite to get exact coordinates or break down easily.

Conclusion

It looks there is plenty of light but many shadows as well with these devices. So it probably pays off to do some research for the right device and read some reviews online.

Just to get an overview, you could check out the following devices:

• Trackstick 2 (small and convenient, but overly negative reviews; claiming high price, bad performance and limited usability)
• Professional GPS Tracker (very compact, maybe a bit pricey, few reviews only)
• Land Air Sea Tracking Key (very positive reviews, but high price)
• i-Blue 747 Bluetooth Data Logger GPS Receiver (small, neat, very cheap, good reviews, basic functionality)

What are your experiences with GPS Tracking devices? Are they worth the money and the extra hassles with batteries?

Or did you find the right one, which is durable and reliable - you can simply switch it on, forget about it and still have all your trips and routes logged consistently and accurate?

Technorati : air, bluetooth, garmin, google earth, gps, gps logger, gps navigation, gps receiver, land, satellite, sea, spreadsheet, tracker, tracking, usb

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written by Chris