Can you navigate?

[Twitch]

When I was a kid in St. Louis we rode our bikes all over the city. We'd look at a map and take off to our destination. In my USMC recon unit we were given coordinates and expected to go there. Often it was just 2 guys on listen post duty but we knew how to navigate in the boonies.

Later in business everyone I was associated with could read maps. It was standard proceedure to give a salesman a list of accounts, throw him the Thomas guide and say, "here, route yourself."

Today I find fewer and fewer people capable of reading maps and certainly less able to look at a map once and not need to refer to it over and over on the way. They don't know their compass directions like, "go north and then turn west." Without Mapquest's turn by turn written directions and GPS systems people seem as though they'd just sit and stare at the dashboard if they didn't have them.

Does anyone else notice this? We've all gotten lost but do you generally consider yourself a good navigator?[huh]

 

[Miss_Bella_Hell]

When I was a kid in St. Louis we rode our bikes all over the city. We'd look at a map and take off to our destination. In my USMC recon unit we were given coordinates and expected to go there. Often it was just 2 guys on listen post duty but we knew how to navigate in the boonies.

Later in business everyone I was associated with could read maps. It was standard proceedure to give a salesman a list of accounts, throw him the Thomas guide and say, "here, route yourself."

Today I find fewer and fewer people capable of reading maps and certainly less able to look at a map once and not need to refer to it over and over on the way. They don't know their compass directions like, "go north and then turn west." Without Mapquest's turn by turn written directions and GPS systems people seem as though they'd just sit and stare at the dashboard if they didn't have them.

Does anyone else notice this? We've all gotten lost but do you generally consider yourself a good navigator?[huh]

I can read maps and I have an excellent sense of direction. I have very little patience with people who don't know where North is (for example). But there are many people out there who couldn't find their way out of a cardboard box, and I try to chalk it up to "Oh well, I have a sense of direction, they don't." But it still bugs me.

 

["Doc" Devereux]

When I was growing up, I learned all sorts of things that were considered useful for a boy to know when he grew up. Among these skills were map-reading and navigation. As such I can still read a map as I walk or plot a course to avoid traffic problems as someone else is driving without any need to stop and think overly about it. My personal favourite on this sort of thing was the time I navigated from Brixton to Wimbledon (just south of central-ish to very south-west London) using only the sun as a reference - no maps being to hand at the time and it being before I got to know the scary bandit country known as 'South Of The River'. Challenging, yes. But also rather fun and I'm still proud of having done it without a single wrong turn! lol

 

[VintageJess]

I have to confess that I am horrible with maps, charts, graphs and any of that kind of stuff. I can look at the map and understand it, but have a lot of difficulty in translating that into where and when I need to turn, etc.

My lack of skills drives my hubby nuts, who was a whiz at Land Nav at OCS and TBS. He LOVES maps...

I am much better with written out directions and landmarks. ("Turn left at the Dairy Queen...") I guess I kind of just look at it as another one of those skills that people tend to have a knack for (or not, in my case.) I'm a speed-reader and have a razor sharp memory though. We all have our strengths and weeknesses, so I suppose it all works out in the end...[huh]

 

[mikepara]

Yeah I noticed too.

I'm an ex Assistant Artillery Forward Observation Officer and thus Very good at map reading and all the associated skills. but even then some people who really should have known how to read a map were always getting lost or ending up in the wrong place, tragic!

Theres nothing hard about it . Is there?

 

[Section10]

Yes, I'm a good navigator. Maps are no problem and the sun and the time of day always tell me where north is and at night there's the north star (if it's not cloudy). One fall a few years ago my boy and me were tracking a wounded deer deep in a swamp and it got pitch dark and we had to give up and I just turned and walked us straight out to the road. He thought we'd have to backtrack, but I generally always know where I'm at in relation to what's around me.

 

[Pilgrim]

I grew up in a small town (well, 25,000 or so) and navigated entirely by landmarks without realizing it.

When I moved to Denver at age 23, it was the first time I had to use maps and navigate by street names - but this quickly became easy to do. No problem.

I do notice that people who live in small towns tend to give directions that assume you already know the town: 'go up'...'go over'...go down'....

When I get directions, I want terms such as left, right, and compass directions (N/S/E/W). I often stop people who are giving directions (hopefully politely) and say - is that a Right? Turn North? (etc.). I no longer will accept directions that incude terms such as over / up / down.

I find that people in cities are familiar with this and often give good, succinct directions that are easy to follow. The MOST common exception is when I call a hotel asking for directions on how to get there! Invariably, the response is: "I don't know, I've only worked here a week and I don't live in this town." Then they have to go find someone who can give directions. Amazing how often this happens. Turnover among hotel desk people must be incredible.

 

[Paisley]

I think I have a pretty good sense of direction. Good thing, because strangers often ask me for directions. Who says men don't ask for directions?

I love how easy it is to find your way around Denver. In certain parts of town, the street names are alphabetical. The Rocky Mountains are west. The (usually) cloudless skies make it easy to go by Orion (my north star). I do tend to get lost in the twisting, turning roads of the suburbs where the streets aren't numbered on the signs.

A few years ago during the New York blackout many people had to find their way back to hotels using the moon and stars. It's a good skill to have.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm with Jess on this one -- I have to go by landmarks, not by maps or compass bearings or the stars. Now, if we could get them to paint the meridians along the ground somehow, then I could get some use out of a map...

 

[colleency]

When I was little, my grandpa used to "get lost" while driving. We would have to tell him how to get home from wherever we were.

In court reporting school in California there is a required class in reading a Thomas Guide.

The only time I get really turned around, map-wise is when the coast is at an angle, and the roads are marked east, west, etc., but they're really going northwest, etc.

 

[Caledonia]

I have virtually no sense of direction without a map. With a map (British Ordnance Survey or similar) I'm a whizz. But don't ask me what all those signs for churches, youth hostels etc are. I'm a compass direction, topographic kind of girl. And I can only work the map as it sits in front of me in the printed version. Try and turn it so it relates to the actual direction and I'm lost! Have me face north, and the map shows north facing south - no problem. That didn't make sense, did it?

 

[Benny Holiday]

Of course I'm a good navigator . . .

it's a well-known fact that men can't ask for directions!

The myth is that men can read maps and women can't; I've heard all sorts of scientific jive about how the brain is wired differently in the sexes and so on. In truth, though, my wife is an excellent navigator and reads maps very well, while two of my best male friends couldn't find their way around the block without getting lost, even with the easiest of maps at their disposal.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Yes Indeed!...

I'm a pilot, so I have training in navigation anyway - but I've always been fascinated by maps and navigation. Believe it or not, I have spents hours at a time looking at maps and familiarizing myself with locations, directions and orientations. It has something to do with mental/spacial orientation - I've got a map in mind!

I once drove with a woman in England who could not read a map. I drove - she navigated. It was hilarious (but frustrating!!) to watch the map spin in her lap as we entered a round-about! Like something from "European Vacation'.

If we were on a road trip, believe me, you'd want me as your navigator.

-dixon cannon

 

[Mike in Seattle]

My partner just got a new car. One of the big reasons for choosing the particular model was that it has, in the rearview mirror, a little square that tells you what direction you're headed. This would, I'm told, save him so much time finding unknown locations when people say "Go north and then turn west." And after writing a check to pay for this behemoth, a check that was twice what my parents paid for their house 55 years ago, twice what his parents paid for their house 30 years ago, we jump in to head home...car pointed due east...with a mirror saying we were heading northwest. I was also rather surprised driving from Portland to Seattle the other day, it said I was heading SE...silly me for thinking we were heading due north...

 

[Rosie]

Sadly, I have NO sense of direction . I know where I am going by land mark. I lived across the pond for about a year and my first few weeks there, I was lost ALL OF THE TIME. The manager of the hotel I was staying in circled the hotel and other major landmarks for me on a map so I wouldn't have such a hard time [huh] [huh] it was all gibberish to me. I'm one of those "keep going 'til you see the big red building" people.

 

[Viola]

I have no sense of direction. I can find north usually, but that doesn't tell me how to get to somebody's house. I can sort of read a map. I can follow instructions of "This Street right on That Street then north on That Street all the way to the Dairy Queen..."

But I can always find my way home. lol

At least I admit when I don't know where I'm going. My sister walked us (from a vintage store...) around six miles in a big loop in the rain carrying many coats. Each time "OF COURSE I know where we're going, JUST FOLLOW ME!"

Then, of course, two hours later on foot, we find not home, but the vintage store again! :rage:

 

[airfrogusmc]

Twitch first off S/F. My wife is horrible with directions. I always try to tell here use East West North South and exact street names but she always reverts back to ohhh the street by the gas station make a left what a minute matbe thats a rith well if the stations on the left go right. When ever we road trip I usually drive but anytime I need to look at a map I gotta pull over cause the map might as well be an abstract painting to her.

Miss Bella your a gal after every guys heart.

 

[Mojave Jack]

Fuel for the debate:

Gay men read maps like women

I'm not sure how much I buy into the theories, since I think that a lot of this comes back to the nature vs. nurture debate. I think a lot of the map reading and navigational capability just comes from what is expected of people as they are gowing up.

We had a captain in the Marine Corps that we called "Lost in the Woods" Harrington, because despite being a trained infantry officer he consistently led us to the wrong coordinates. If there is a map reading gene, he sure didn't have it!

 

[Viola]

Fuel for the debate:

Gay men read maps like women

I'm not sure how much I buy into the theories, since I think that a lot of this comes back to the nature vs. nurture debate. I think a lot of the map reading and navigational capability just comes from what is expected of people as they are gowing up.

We had a captain in the Marine Corps that we called "Lost in the Woods" Harrington, because despite being a trained infantry officer he consistently led us to the wrong coordinates. If there is a map reading gene, he sure didn't have it!

I am trying REALLY hard to resist making a don't-ask-don't-tell joke, but you are not making it easy!

 

[Mojave Jack]

I am trying REALLY hard to resist making a don't-ask-don't-tell joke, but you are not making it easy!

:eusa_doh: Whoops! That was a poor choice of topics to include in one posting! Methinks I should have divided that up a bit.

OK, to clarify, I never ask for directions, and I navigate by cardinal directions!