Can you navigate?

[Vanessa]

Lauren's the Pilot, I'm the Navigator. (We have photographic proof. . .somewhere.)

I think you can teach someone to read a map and show them where they're going, but they have to have an inner sense of where they are in relation to everything else and how to retrace their path. And I don't think it can be taught.
Case in Point: On car trips when I was younger, my mom & brother would sleep/read in the car, therefore never paying any attention to where we were headed, what we passed or even how the road signs 'worked'. So they both can get lost going around the block. (That's just pathetic.)
Now, they've since come out with a handy-dandy thing called Mapquest which gives you exact directions and an itty bitty map - but deviate from anything spelled out and they're up the proverbial creek. Despite looking at the map, they just have no clue of directions, landmarks or placement.
Now, my dad, you can blindfold him & wind him through a forest and he'll be able to retrace his steps exactly. He's able to give exact street directions and also add in landmarks for people to follow. I don't really mind all the nagging from years past about not sleeping in the car now. . . considering I can make four right turns and still know which direction I'm heading.

 

[Lauren]

She's a good navigator, too. I was the one who got us on the freeway going the wrong way for 15 minutes because that was the nearest exit.

 

[Matt Deckard]

Given a map and a compass or some good sun direction I have been tested in the field... yes I can navigate. I like Topo maps... get them from USGS.

Given a car and roads I don't know which way is North...

 

[Story]

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!

A few years back, Fort Knox decided (apparently without consulting the armor/cavalry units) that they were going to drop the map-compass-protractor dismounted/mounted land navigation methods and just teach GPS to both the brand new enlisted and officers.

I gather the response from back from the gaining units was epic and emotionally significant. The program of instruction was quickly changed to also include the 'old ways'.

 

[Mojave Jack]

I was heading out to the field with my boss, and she fell asleep for most of the ride out. I woke her up when we were getting close to the site so she could navigate us in. She was still half asleep and had the map upside down (we were headed north, so it wasn't a case of orienting the map). As tactfully as I could I pointed that fact out. She is completely incapable of ever admitting she's made a mistake, so she said, "I know. I always read my maps that way. It's just a habit." It was comical to see her try to carry that charade on for the next few miles to the site! I was stifling laughter the rest of the way!

 

[Twitch]

Wow folks! A stunning bunch of responses. My curiosity is quenched.
I know it's not a male/female thing since my grandmother and mother could read maps and find their ways around anywhere even strange cities. I have toyed with the idea that, like many things, if directional skills are learned at an early age they are stronger but I dunno.[huh]

 

[Lady Day]

This can be linked to gender to a degree.
I forget where I found the study, but it said that more women use landmarks for directions, while more men use maps.

I dont think it good or bad, but true. I can tell you exactly where you are by landmarks, but I have such trouble with names of streets and stuff like that. Most women I know are the same.

Interesting . . . :whistling


LD

 

[jeep44]

When I was a kid, we always used to go on a long camping trip every summer-usually somewhere out west. My Mother did a horrible job of navigating,usually along the lines of "I think we should have turned back there". When we entered a new state, I would always run into the first Standard station we stopped at,and grab one of the (free!) maps,and study it. Soon, I was guiding my Dad on the trips,and harmony reigned in our car again lol
In my job,I read a lot of blueprints,which,to me,is pretty much the same thing-no problem for me. But my son,who is a Marine officer skilled in land navigation and artillery spotting,still prefers the mapquest turn-by-turn directions,much to my amazement.

 

[Mr Nick]

Yes! With or without a map!

I can find my way around with relative ease no matter where I happen to be. I really found out about my sense of direction in the Navy. I was on a small boat that traveled a couple hundred miles out & back in the Atlantic. Many times we would be going out when I went to sleep and when I awakened I could tell we had turned around and were heading back in before I went topside to see (Pitch black, middle of the night, no land in sight). The first few times even I was skeptical, but after half a dozen incidents (and I was right each time) I began to believe it. I had a friend who is an ex-trucker because he has NO sense of direction at all.lol

 

[skinnychik]

This can be linked to gender to a degree.
I forget where I found the study, but it said that more women use landmarks for directions, while more men use maps.

I dont think it good or bad, but true. I can tell you exactly where you are by landmarks, but I have such trouble with names of streets and stuff like that. Most women I know are the same.

Interesting . . . :whistling


LD

Funny. My dad gave directions using eating establishments as landmarks.

"Take the main road down to the Yorkshire Fish & Chips place and take a left. If you come to the Red Lobster, you've gone too far. The first light after the Crab Shack is the street you want."

We used to joke that he could sniff out any restaurant in the city, but he would consistently get lost in our own subdivision.

 

["Doc" Devereux]

Funny. My dad gave directions using eating establishments as landmarks.

I quite often use pubs.

 

[MJCR]

I learnt map reading and orienteering at school in the RAF Cadets. Since then I've kept my love of maps and map reading, although I think the new map software and GPS gadgets are fantastic as well!

 

[Haversack]

I used to do Orienteering as well. I started in the Boys Scouts and then picked it up while in the Army. For those who don't know, orienteering is like a cross-country race in which you have a map and compass and only the location for the first point/gate/turn. At each point you are given a direction for the next point. The direction may be in the form of a grid coordinate, a triangulation from two other points, or a direction from one point and distance. You had to first figure out on the map where you were going, and then figure out the best route to get there. Idealy, this is done in an area with a lot of terrain and vegegation and not many roads. These means that the shortest route is often not the fastest. The skill was not so much broken-field running or quickly locating the next point, (although both are useful). The real skill is being able to pick your route. Know what those countour lines really mean on the ground and what all those little symbols mean. ("Who knew there was a cliff there?!")

There is a lot to be said for knowing the old-fashioned analog way of finding your way. My in-laws are world-sailors, (Yes, it really is round), who occassionally give classes on navigation using sextant, chart, and chronometer. They point out that the corrolary of relying soley on GPS for a tran-Pac run is the effect that salt water has on electronics. I'm also glad to hear that they have reinstated land-navigation at Fort Knox. Otherwise they would have to find a new answer to the question, "What is the most dangerous thing in the Army?" (a 2nd Lieutenant with a map).

For myself, I am an address person rather than a route person.

Haversack.

 

[The Reno Kid]

I learned to navigate and read maps when I was a kid more or less automatically as a part of growing up. At the time, I thought everyone did. One of my summer jobs while I was in college consisted of taking off from the office every morning with a backpack and a topo map. I would pick a spot that hadn't been sampled and hike a ridge or a draw taking soil samples. This was in the middle of nowhere in Northern Nevada and I had to be able to find my way to an agreed-upon pickup point in mountain country 40 miles from the nearest town at the end of the day (with about 70 lbs of samples on my back). Shootin' fish in a barrel. I did have a compass.

 

[Dixon's Dame]

I've always been good with maps and directions. My sister will call me up every now and then (she lives in Los Angeles) and will say I'm at such-and-such a street, how do I find the freeway? And I'll pull up a map and navigate her to where she needs to go.

I hike the Sierra a lot with topo maps and have never had a problem. My dad is an astronomer, so I learned how to navigate by the night sky and the sun very early on -- useful when you're out backpacking. I'm also one of those people who if I've been somewhere once, I can almost always get back there again on my own. My mom is this way too (she was always navigator on family trips).