How to Find a Rural Address on a GPS

By Candi Lemon

Update an Insignia GPS
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If you are using your GPS device to locate rural addresses, you may discover that your GPS is not always able to find rural addresses on "Route 3" or "Highway 260," for example. To troubleshoot this problem, start by contacting your GPS manufacturer to ensure that your GPS has the current map update for the region where you are trying to locate the rural address. If your GPS is still having trouble locating rural addresses even after the map update, use an alternative way to locate your rural destinations.

Step 1

Find the geographic coordinates for the rural address you are trying to locate. Geographic coordinates of a place consist of the location's latitude and longitude. Look at a printed map or atlas to manually determine the coordinates of the desired location, or use websites such as geonames.usgs.gov to look up geographic coordinates. Many rural business owners can also provide you with the coordinates of their business location. Type the address' coordinates into your GPS and try to locate the address this way.

Step 2

Use the "finding a place by spelling the name" feature (if available) on your GPS device. This works when trying to locate businesses, landmarks, service centers and such. Type in the name of the location into your GPS device and see if the GPS has an address for the rural location in its memory.

Step 3

Type in the closest road intersection to your rural address into your GPS device. Your GPS may not be able to locate "2300 Highway 216", but it may be able to take you to the intersection of "Highway 216" and 'King Road," for example. Once you get to the closest intersection, follow the road until you reach your address.

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