I’ve been using Ovi Maps on my Nokia N97 since 2009 when I went to Taiwan in August last year. The turn by turn navigation was not free that time but I won a 1 year license through a Nokia contest. Since then I fell in love with Ovi Maps. Recently the turn by turn navigation has gone free for life, which is definitely a good news to all Ovi Maps compatible Nokia phone users. On top of that, Ovi Maps can also be used in offline mode so that no data charges will be incurred!

I’ve made a video of how to plan a road trip using Ovi Maps to some of the interesting places in Georgetown, Penang, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Planning a road trip using Ovi Maps is easy and simple.

1^st step: Logon to maps.ovi.com using the web browser on your PC

Plot and save all the places of interest that you wish to visit on maps.ovi.com so that they can be synchronized into your Nokia phone. You may also assign all the destinations into different routes in order to have an organized trip.

Below are the places I visited :-

• 1. Khoo Kongsi (An ancient clan temple since 1851)
• 2. Kuan Yin Temple
• 3. St. George’s Church (Oldest Anglican Church in South East Asia)
• 4. Penang Museum
• 5. Penang City Council Building (a.k.a. City Hall, Penang)
• 6. Fort Cornwallis (Largest standing fort in Malaysia)

For my Penang trip, I have 2 routes (Destination 1-2 and Destination 4-6) with “drive to” navigation and 1 route (Destination 2-4) with “walk to” navigation.

My favourite places saved in web based Ovi Maps :-

Plot and save favourite locations in web based Ovi Maps (Click to enlarge)

All favourite locations saved in web based Ovi Maps (Click to enlarge)

2^nd step: Synchronize with Ovi Maps in your Nokia phone

Upon saving the favourite places and routes on maps.ovi.com, it’s time to synchronized them into your Nokia phone. After everything is synchronized, you should see the favourite places and route in the Ovi Maps of your phone.

3^rd step: During the trip, follow the turn by turn navigation of Ovi Maps

Select the saved favourite places on Ovi Maps on your Nokia phone and pick either “drive to” navigation or “walk to” navigation depending on the distance and route.

4^th step: Enjoy the journey!

Just follow the way Ovi Maps is leading you and you will reach the destination. Relax and enjoy the trip, let Ovi Maps do all the navigation work. :)

Some photos unseen in the video :-

The starting point of the journey. Komtar, Penang

Penang Museum

City Hall, Penang (Click to enlarge)

Fort Cornwallis (Click to enlarge)

This is the first ever video produced by myself and I realized shooting and editing video is not easy. Anyway, I truly enjoyed the process though. For the walk navigation part, I had to walk back and forth under the hot sun a few times to get the best angle and best shot and the people there were wondering why was I walking to the camera for so many times. Haha!

The video editing process took quite a long time because this is the first time I edit a video but I’m glad that I’ve learned this new skill. Hopefully we’ll see more videos produced by me in the future.

Hope you enjoy the video too.