> You'll love using your phone for navigation, until you go to Canada, where you don't have data. (Or affordable data.)

In that case just use the HERE WeGo App (for iPhone: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/here-wego-effortless-city/id...) which has free offline maps for pretty much every country and doesn't need a data connection for navigation in offline mode. I use it every time I'm in another country.

I love HERE, I used it for a lot of international travel. I just wanted to also throw out there that google maps now, and for a while, offers offline navigation.

[0] https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838

Then you download the offline gmaps package, which has everything except real-time traffic and public transport info.

Offline maps was at one point removed from Google Maps for Mobile, but they put it back.

Here's how to use it: https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838

Disclaimer: I work for Google, but not on Maps.

I know on Google Maps you can cache large sections on the map for offline use.

Rogers is expensive, but what you're paying that 2x premium for is the cell phone towers in the rural parts of the country. The one time I saw download speeds on my cell phone approach the maximum theoretical was on a highway in the middle of nowhere in Ontario where I was probably the only person using that cell phone tower. If you live in an urban area and don't need the coverage, you can get a reasonable "unlimited" plan from WIND Mobile for $60 CAD/month.

I'm on Wind mobile for my primary phone and pay around CAD 35/m (40 if you factor in taxes) for unlimited data (3GB full speed, throttled for more - but have yet to throttle me even though I always go above my data limit).

It's great if you travel in any area with coverage, anything outside and you'll have trouble - I recently decided to drive to Scugog (from Oshawa) - I didn't have data from almost the entire ride.

I was lucky as I had HERE maps (with downloaded offline maps).

This is great advice for a Canadian who needs cellphone coverage. This is not great advice for an American who is visiting. (The best advice for that situation is ordering a pre-paid SIM card. Or not using your phone for navigation.)

If you're visting from the US:

T-Mobile ONE gives you unlimited* 4G LTE data in Canada and Mexico, and throttles you to 128kbps in ~140 other countries (enough to get basic maps).

Their previous plan, Simple Choice, would throttle you to 2G speeds when you were in Canada, but it was still enough to use Maps.

If you're a long-term visitor, then, yes, you should just get a local prepaid SIM from Rogers.

Disclaimer: I'm a T-mobile customer.

Or using the free Nokia navigation app, which works fine.

HERE got bought by a group of automakers.

verizon's new plans give you your data in canada for no additional charge.

Sat Nav apps are available and at reasonable pricing (Think I paid ~£20 for CoPilot a few years ago which included maps for all of the UK and Europe, worldwide could be acquired for a little more)

Edit: When I was in Uganda I used OsmAnd (open street map android) for offline navigation and it worked fine (especially considering the standard of mapping and roads available in Uganda).

just download the offline map before you go!

You'd probably have to do that for your dedicated GPS anyways, right?

My car is pre-loaded with full mapping data for all of Canada and the US.

I suppose I could achieve the same effect by clearing up space on my phone, figuring out exactly where I'm going, grabbing offline data for it, praying that I don't ever drive out of that area, deleting the offline data after my trip...

Or, I could just use my car's built in maps.

TMo includes free international data in most plans I think. http://www.t-mobile.com/optional-services/roaming.html

There are multiple offline navigation applications on Android (e.g. Sygic or OSMand), and those are more up to date than the ones in car.

There are offline phone navigation apps also. Have you looked at Navmii?