Hi I would like to set up a route and slightly

if you want it to take you from point a to b in a particular way, ignore the garmin, thats not how they work. unless you set up a route on your coputer with basecamp or mapsource then send it to the device it will give you it's best analysis and if you prefer a different route, mute the garmin and go your preffered route. Some of their top tier unts give you like 3 options of ways to get there but the basic units just get you there.

You can tell it to take the shortest route, and this will go on all roads including backroads, or you can tell it to take the fastest route and it will include highways. I would highly suggest you leave it on 'fastest route' setting.

Rather than telling it to take the shortest route, tell it to take the fastest route, this will probably take it onto the highways.

What you're looking for is called "Via Points" as your friend correctly suggested. From the Garmin Nuvi 750 web based information:

nüvi 750 includes advanced navigational features to take the worry out of traveling. With route planning you can save 10 routes, specify via points and preview simulated turns on the 750's wide screen. In addition, nüvi 750 automatically sorts multiple destinations to provide an efficient route for errands, deliveries or sales calls.

"Alternate routes" are those routes that are created when the nuvi is used with a traffic receiver (FM or MSDN). This allows for a new route to be created with the traffic data so that routes suffering congestion, etc. are avoided. Some people also refer to the routes created when a turn is missed (the GPS indicates "Recalculating") as an "alternate route" but it is not.

Good luck!

From browsing the manual (page 20) for your Garmin nüvi 350, it looks like you will be able to do this by creating the route in MapSource, saving it as a GPX file, and then loading it to your nuvi on an SD flash memory card.

The Nuvi 350 doesn't support custom routes. You can create waypoints (or custom POIs) for each location and manually pick waypoints as you travel, but there is no way link all the points together into a route. While you can upload a GPX file to it, it won't contain the route, just waypoints. When you pick a waypoint and tell the 350 to take you there, it's going to calculate the route based on the settings (ie, vehicle type, shortest distance, etc). It won't follow a predetermined route.

You should do the following: Changing the Navigation Settings;
Touch Tools>settings>Navigation. There you'll find how the sysytem will calculate your route.Route Preference.........Faster Time....Shorter Distance.......Off Road....Avoidances,very helpfull....Restore original navigation settings.
Hope this will help you,
JADF

settings are set at the shortest route, change to the quickest route....will put you back on the main roads

I think you've probably got the unit set to 'Shorter Distance' rather than 'Faster Time' in the navigation preferences.

This can be changes by navigating from the main screen to Setup (the spanner icon at the bottom) --> Navigation --> Route Preference

The problem could be in your avoidance settings. I know when I was in Delaware, a 1/2 hour trip turned out to be a 3 hour detour because I had set to avoid highways.

In Garmin, if it's checked, it means AVOID. I know the documentation isn't clear but I've learned from experience (trial & error).

Sometimes it happens. Garmin isn't perfect but it beats looking at a map most of the time.