I am looking at getting a used Garmin GPS. It is a GPSmap 60 CSX. The pawn/gun shop has one at a good price. I want to be able to use it to navigate between public and/or privateland. It can upload maps, but does it have the capability to upload a US Forest Service or BLM map or other maps that would show property boundaries on it?

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John 14:6

I doubt it. But I really don't know if anyone who makes those maps of your area is publishing them in a format that will work. THAT is the issue. You will have to find appropriately formatted maps, and I just don't know if they are available.

I can tell you that by knowing exactly where you are, you can always find yourself on any printed map with the proper coordinates on it. I use UTM on my 60CSX with Garmin contour maps loaded, UTM contour paper maps, and municipal maps indicating ownership if I need to know whose land I'm standing on. I just don't need to do that very often, so my "workaround" works for me. It would be absolutely convenient if you can find the loadable maps, but a good GPS can be combined with paper maps in many useful ways.

That is arguably one of the world's best handheld GPS receivers.

And you can download free topo mapping for it too. Those won't have private property markings but do have the limits of state parks and stuff like that. I get my free topo mapping for my GPSMAP 76Cx here:

GPSFileDepot - Free Custom Garmin Maps, Ximage hosting, tutorials, articles and more for your GPSr

And there are many other sites too.

I could go on for hours about the 60/76 Cx and CSx models (they are the same other than the arrangement of the display and buttons). The CSx models have a barometer and magnetic compass to give you more accurate elevations and stationary compass headings.

You can put marine, highway, topo, and other secondary maps on those and go pretty much anywhere in the world with a single handheld GPS device that needs only 2 to 4 AA cells a day (depending on back light useage). And you can record all your track data to a memory card as you travel and look at it later to seen when and where.

The features are powerful, the menus are complex, they intimidate newbies and non-navigator types (I have a Coast Guard Master's License, I like them just the way they are).

Here is a text file that summarizes the screens and menu settings for the Cx models, it will help you get it set up the first time and also to remember and/or find all of the wonderful settings:

http://www.vom.com/jack/misc/090227_...20Settings.txt

When I want to fly across the country, get in a rental car, find and place where a boat is, go to the boat, and take the boat somewhere without running afoul of various rocks and shoals, my GPSMAP 76Cx will get me through it all. And if it is a Million Dollar boat with the state of the art navigation suite it does not matter if any of it is working or not. The 76Cx will have the charts and routes I need...

It is a good one, if the price looks OK to you buy it!

Jack