
Letting go of the GPS to learn the art of natural navigation - mislankanova
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/may/06/ditching-the-satnav-the-lost-secrets-of-natural-navigation
======
euske
Fascinating article. I love getting lost in Tokyo too. Here are a couple of
tips I could add in case of Tokyo...

* All the TV antennas point at Tokyo Sky Tree.

* All the regional train tracks (except Yamanote) are radial. They're all going toward Yamanote Line.

* Major named streets (except "Kanjo" or circular streets) go to the Emperor Palace.

* Tokyo is a city carved by rivers, so it has many ups and downs. Pay attention to town names that are typically indicative of its configuration, e.g. -yama (mountain), -oka (hill), -tani/-gaya (valley), -saka (slope) etc.

* Beware of subway lines and subway exits because their shapes are very unpredictable, with confusing station names.

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elcapitan
Looking at the title, I guessed this would be an article about Tristan Gooley,
and yes, it was - I read "The Walker's Guide to Outdoor Clues & Signs" and it
was both entertaining and informative. If you do outdoor activities, it is a
nice supplement (even if you keep using GPS etc). Just parsing the environment
a bit better is so much fun and kind of deepens the experience.

I recently started to watch the birds as well when hiking, and that again gave
more depth and makes me feel more a part of nature. The example in the article
of loud bird cacophony as a sign for something interesting happening is a good
one. I was in Berlin's largest park yesterday, with birds tweeting around
everywhere, but at some point, it was a bit off, so I stopped and started
looking, and sure enough, there was a beautiful buzzard hunting.

Trees are the kind of obvious thing to watch, and they tell a lot about the
environment. The next thing I'll try to get a better understanding for is
weather phenomena (actually the most helpful thing to learn for outdoor
activities as it can save your life). There's also a similar book by Gooley on
how to "read water" which looks interesting.

~~~
bklaasen
Tristan Gooley was interviewed on the Rough Guide podcast late last year:
[https://pca.st/RvTf](https://pca.st/RvTf) I found his approach to staying
oriented fascinating.

------
dcow
GPS is a great way to get from point A to point B without learning the first
thing about the location that the route guidance software is navigating for
you. If you're only passing through, fine. But you just don't build the same
mental model of an area when you don't have to think about it. When the phone
dies or there's no reception, you're utterly helpless. When I'm navigating my
local areas, I only use a map application to plan routes and occasionally to
correct course (like you'd use a physical map). I'd encourage everyone to give
it a shot. Don't be a foreigner in your own city!

~~~
technological
But maps give you additional advantage such as , live traffic due to which I
save time by taking a different route (may be caused due to an accident or
other reason)

~~~
reaperducer
Cell phone maps are utterly useless in too many situations. A lack of
reception being one. Or equally as bad -- too much reception, as in competing
GPS and cell triangulation signals bouncing off buildings in a dense urban
environment.

People always make the excuse that you can just download the maps into the
phone. But that wouldn't have helped me in the places I've been over the last
two weeks when my phone repeatedly went into thermal shutdown because the
ambient air temperature was too hot. (No, I don't have a case that traps the
heat.)

If I relied on electronic maps, I'd be lost or dead or both by now.

(Even better than paper maps are maps printed on cloth, which you can get wet,
roll into a ball and stuff into your jeans, etc... But those are kind of
rare.)

~~~
kalleboo
If you're going into a situation where you'll end up lost or dead, then
certainly yes do not rely on electronic maps.

For the average GPS-using situation, the worst case scenario is they you to
start reading road signs or stop ask for help. In these cases, a GPS navigator
can be very handy, such as on a road trip I took last year through an area
where an earthquake had shut down a significant portion of the road network.
Either I sit for hours and pour over lists of road closures and construction
dates and cross them off my paper map (the info changes monthly so there
aren't any preprinted maps), or just use an app that already knows everything.

------
pkamb
I'd love some kind of GPS mode that just gave the most important or trickiest
directions, then was completely silent for the rest of the trip.

I know how to get out of my neighborhood and onto the northbound freeway. I'll
never need directions to do this. I know I'll be driving for 30 minutes. I
just need the exit to take when it's coming up, and a few tricky turns near
the destination. Just give me that and I'll figure out the rest.

~~~
jzwinck
A related thing I'd like is a navigation system which understands that some
turns are not important. If I'm driving on a Manhattan-style grid, I'd like it
to say "You could turn here if you want, but straight is good too." I'd
probably go straight if it's green and I'm doing 45, but if I'm at the head of
the queue and it's red, I'd rather turn right.

~~~
navs
Or maybe a navigation system that has a bit of personality. I feel like
they've remained robotic while companies try to inject a personality into
their personal assistant counterparts.

~~~
kalleboo
It used to be a thing to download celebrity voices to your TomTom. John Cleese
was popular.

There's a Japanese navigation app that has a bunch of anime voice actresses
doing different stereotypical characters. You take a wrong turn and they scold
you, or ask if you're feeling OK [http://maplus-
sp.jp/voice_list.html?ct=cvi1](http://maplus-sp.jp/voice_list.html?ct=cvi1)

------
netsharc
Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear mentioned in passing, that you should always
program your navigation device so that north is up, not direction of travel is
up, and (in his typical hyperbolic manner) "you'll never get lost again.".

I liked this tip, it shows me the general direction I'm going
(east/west/south), not "up" through an unfamiliar geography that morphs when
you turn.

~~~
arnvald
Oh my, I find it so annoying when maps in public places don't have north up.

Usually when I'm in a new place, before leaving my hotel I look at the map and
I remember where to go, which turn to take etc. There only problem is metro -
I don't know which exit to take, so I always check the map of the area at the
metro station. So I look at the map, I know the street I'm going to is in the
south, but I cannot find it. Only then I remember to look around the corners
of the map, and then I realize, that south is on the right!

I've been wondering why don't just all maps have north up, and I could never
come with a very good explanation.

~~~
oe
Barcelona is one place where this happens. The coast goes SW - NE but many
maps are aligned to make it look going north - south. We got lost once trying
to navigate west :)

~~~
lurquer
Ha. Can't believe someone mentioned Barcelona. Went to London and a few other
European cities and my cheapo-wrist compass made it so easy to navigate.

Then we reached Barcelona, where every damn road is at a 45 degree angle!
Argh. It's not trivial -- at least when you've had several sangrias -- to
stand at an intersection, facing NE, and then try to figure out whether to
turn left or right to go SE. (Yes, yes... In sure someone here will reply as
to how simple it all is... But, keep in mind the sangrias...)

------
seer
Once I was travelling through Morocco and the general advice I got from other
turists even before the trip was “don’t trust the gps”. It turned out the
medinas (old towns) themselves were so densly packed, that you could not see
much of the sky to get any lock on satellites, and the internet coverage was
very spotty.

And you “had” to learn how to read paper maps, because otherwise you’d fall
pray to the many “tourist guides” that will scam you for 5-10 bucks each time,
or worse. In that unique environment, where there's a need and a threat model,
you get the hang of it pretty quickly, and boy oh boy was it worth it, after
the inital bit were you “learn the map” I could navigate the busy winding
streets of marakesh with confidence, spending way more time looking at the
splendor of the souk(bazaar), choosing “alternative” routes to explore new
areas, while having this worm “at home” feeling.

And that “skill” persisted for quite aome time after the trip. We had an
orientation challenge team building event, and my tream beat everyone handily
mainly because of the medina training I got :)

~~~
monort
I haven't been in all medinas of Morocco, but never had a problem with GPS
there, have you actually tried to use it? :) I think the only place where I
really had a problem were Caruggi of Genoa.

One tip to have a better location awareness with electronic map is to enable
trip recording, if you see your previous way you can sort of continue walking
"inertially".

~~~
arethuza
I did try using Google Maps on my phone in Marrakesh a few years back and it
failed completely and left me with an astounding data roaming charge.

Easier to pay a local to walk you back to your hotel if you get completely
lost!

~~~
icebraining
Nowadays Google Maps lets you download an area ahead of time, and then use it
offline.

~~~
izacus
Still doesn't help since Marrakech medina has practically no streets drawn in
on GMaps / OSM and you're not getting a GPS lock worth a damn. Your phone will
just put you somewhere a few 10m off which can easily be another snaky street.

Maps are awesome there.

(This is experience from this year.)

------
vanderZwan
I just had a discussion about this with a friend of mine, Jaffar Salih (we
studied Interaction Design together so topics like this fascinate us), and
what he remarked is that navigation apps could actually be _educational tools_
for learning to navigate yourself. They just need to add clear markers of
landmarks in their route descriptions.

Even more interesting: since Google already keeps track of where you are very
often, it could use your favourite shawarma place or regular bus stop as a
"personalised landmark". to give you things to orient by and help you connect
the dots and fill in the gaps. Same thing with familiar routes.

My "counter-argument" was that it was not in Google Maps's interests to make
you _less_ dependent on their navigation app. But maybe someone should get on
making an OSM-based kind of app that does it instead.

------
femto
A classic book is "Cross Country Navigation" by Neil Phillips and Rod Phillips
(1989), aimed at the sport of Rogaining. It emphasises navigation by using the
surrounding landscape and its features, rather than trying to impose a rigid
coordinate system on the landscape. In this way, one works with the landscape,
continually adapting to follow the (quickest) path of least effort, rather
than trying to blast through on a preconceived "best" course. The philosophy
is the same, whether one is inside or outside a city. It's sort of like
Parkour on a large scale.

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/cross-country-
navigation/oclc...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/cross-country-
navigation/oclc/27609102)

------
mcgreevy
"Look for satellite dishes. They all point towards the equator. In London,
that is roughly south-southeast."

If by "roughly south-southeast" you mean "south" and by "in London" you mean
"in the northern hemisphere" :).

~~~
usrusr
Geostationary satellites occupy specific spots over the equator. If you want
to catch a satellite from the edge of its reception area, you point the dish
quite noticeably eastward or westward. Since the Atlanteans never put up TV
satellites, in the UK that means all the dishes are either pointing south or
southeast, never southwest. You can often take a surprisingly educated guess
at the immigrant ratio of a building just from looking at where the dishes are
pointed.

~~~
isostatic
In the UK almost every satellite dish will be a minidish and pointing to
28.2E. Sure a few ex-pats will have dishes pointing at other locations, but
they won't be the typical sky dish.

That only really works in the UK though. If I go up to the roof of the
building I'm in now, I see some dishes pointing east, some west, and some
directly up (well almost)

------
sksksk
Something I loved about living in Bogota, was how easy it was to navigate
there.

The whole city was built on a grid, with the east-west streets increasing in
number as you went north. And the North-south streets increasing in number as
you go east to west.

There is a mountain range to the east, so if you can see the mountains, and
know what streets you're on, you can always find your way

~~~
tokyodude
Something i love about much of Tokyo is many of the streets curve and twist
which makes walking around feel like an adventure of things to be discovered
vs just a utility of getting from here to there. I agree curvy street cities
are harder to navigate but I find them much more romantic.

~~~
elcapitan
They can both be helpful. The grid system is great for getting from coordinate
(a,b) to (c,d). Much better than a natural city core as most older european
cities have (and I mean old in the european meaning, i.e. >1000 years). But
grids are extremely bad for mental mapping, as they are virtually featureless.
So to remember your paths in a city without the coordinate system, it is much
more helpful if the place has curves and outstanding features and little
weirdnesses and so on (you can have outstanding sites along the way on a grid
as well obviously, but because the streets are all just long tunnels, you will
almost never see anything of it except for extremely tall parts like the
mentioned mountains outside, or very high buildings).

~~~
EGreg
For me grids are way better for mental mapping!

Each street and intersection has different buildings, stores and vibe.

------
slivanes
I'm guessing GPS has saved more marriages than any other modern technology.

~~~
paulmd
Counterpoint: the automatic ice-maker

~~~
viraptor
I'm very confused and interested. What do you mean by that?

~~~
cpcallen
[https://youtu.be/oM51OMn3Kdk](https://youtu.be/oM51OMn3Kdk)

------
jakeogh
Kinda like pilots learning to land again.

[https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/automation-addiction-
pilot...](https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/automation-addiction-pilots-
forgetting-fly/story?id=14417730)

------
myroon5
"the sun rises in the east, sets in the west and moves through the southern
sky"

That last part is dependent on your latitude, correct? If you were far enough
south, the sun would move through the northern sky, wouldn't it?

~~~
isostatic
Yes, and in the tropics it depends on the time of year. For instance I've just
been reading this thread on the walk from the hotel to the office in Nairobi.
It's about noon, and the sun was high on my right shoulder, so as it's May I
was walking West.

When I did the same walk in February at the same time the sun was high on my
left shoulder.

However assuming the sun does rise (i.e. you're not in a polar region near the
solstices), it will always rise somewhere to the east (even if it's south-
south-east) and set somewhere to the west.

------
FrozenVoid
If you really want to learn "natural navigation" but don't want to leave home:
[https://www.geoguessr.com/maps/world](https://www.geoguessr.com/maps/world)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/geoguessr/](https://www.reddit.com/r/geoguessr/) for
tournaments (Warning:Its a major timesink)

------
acd
I navigate natural instead of using the gps to force the brain to learn the
way. Otherwise without using it the geospatial part of the brain gets lazy.
One is also forced to ask strangers for directions and help. I World recommend
trying more natural navigation. We are evolved to rapidly learn the way
through geospatial points ie memory learning techniques like Loki.

------
barrkel
Toadalone's comment is worth reading:
[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/may/06/ditchin...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/may/06/ditching-
the-satnav-the-lost-secrets-of-natural-navigation#comment-115494407)

------
sixstringtheory
Every now and then, when my wife and I leave a place we’ve driven to in our
car (rare in the city) we’ll intentionally go out of the way and make a game
of finding our way back. You always get to see a new neighborhood with
different character.

Since I mentioned biking, thats also another great way to see a place
differently and learn your way around.

~~~
flyingcircus3
Having lived in old cities/towns with high traffic, you adapt by finding
shortcuts where you can save time on a frequent commute. The bigger the city,
the higher average commute time it seems. The longer of a drive you can
accumulate those shortcuts too. After getting used to always being on the
lookout for a faster route, moving to a smaller metro area, with better, newer
infrastructure, it's been an odd mental adjustment. Almost like I forgot how
to relax, and now that I can, I still charge ahead. I can see that being a
contentious issue in the future with car ownership, vs giant companies just
providing transportation, and what sort of greater good compromises will be
made to demand safer and safer transportation.

------
navs
Amusing how we let go of some technological item to suddenly re-discover the
world.

When I gave up smartphones for a period of time I found myself wondering what
I could do to spend the time on my ~1hr commute home. I remember being excited
when an old acquaintance caught the same train as me, knowing I could pass the
time talking. I ended up getting to know a lot of the Train Transport officers
because we'd talk about the weather or some local incident.

Not having Google Maps though - that was not a fun experience at all. Yes, I
asked people but usually they didn't know and would whip out their smartphones
to consult Google Maps on my behalf. The worst thing is when you're in a rush
or when the weather is bad. You can't afford to spend extra time looking for
that place you need to be, especially if you're looking for a public toilet in
your city.

------
kerng
Interesting, I occasionally use GPS in areas I have not been to. My general
philosophy is navigation by approximation, slowly closing in on a destination
by finding big landmarks first. Its not the most efficient but it makes for
great tours and trips when not in a rush.

~~~
alafazam
This is exactly me and my friends are doing these days. When we have enough
time and we want to go someplace on the other side of the city. Instead of
using maps to navigate we follow a general direction to reach a landmark first
then look at the map once to see our route from there.

------
JepZ
During my time in London I used similar tricks (looking for the sun or finding
the BT tower by looking for some window reflections) to find my way after
leaving the tube, but then I was taking a vacation in Rio de Janeiro and when
I was walking towards to sun to reach the south facing copacabana I had to
learn that in Rio the sun is north :-/

At first I felt kinda stupid but then I realized, it was my first time on the
southern hemnisphere and until that point the sun was always south of me ;-)

------
habosa
I've got no sense of direction. Zero. I can get lost in my own office or go
the wrong way down a street I've been down 100 times.

Still, I've noticed that because I bike and walk around when I can I'm much
more able to get around San Francisco than most of my friends. You just use a
much larger and more generalizable set of "clues" to get around. When you use
GPS there's no decision making so you never really learn why you turned on
Street X not Street Y.

------
rascul
Washington, D.C. has a street name system which, once you know it, can help
you get around without a map or anything.

[https://dc.curbed.com/2014/8/13/10061100/facts-and-myths-
abo...](https://dc.curbed.com/2014/8/13/10061100/facts-and-myths-about-dcs-
street-system)

------
osrec
I switch off the navigation sometimes on UK roads. The roads here a signposted
well, so it's not really that tough to stay on the right path. It's actually
quite a pleasurable drive when you're not continually monitoring the sat nav.
Plus, I'm more aware of the road conditions.

------
anotheryou
magic compass only showing the general direction of your target:

android:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pointtopoi...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pointtopoint&rdid=com.pointtopoint)

iOS
[https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/crowsflight/id444185307?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/crowsflight/id444185307?mt=8)

(haven't tried either yet)

------
bayesian_horse
I remember navigating without GPS. No, but thanks no.

------
arca_vorago
The only thing a Marine fears more than a Sailor with a rifle is a Lt with a
map and compass.

~~~
jcadam
LOL. At least when I was in the Army 2002-2006, they were still teaching land
navigation using map, compass, and protractor. GPS-enabled devices were
absolutely forbidden on the land nav course. We also did night land nav, which
was definitely more difficult :) I would bet the military still teaches folks
how to navigate sans-GPS, because assuming GPS would remain available during a
conflict with another great power would be... foolish.

Also, north-is-up mode is the only way to go when navigating with your
smartphone :)

------
jacksmith21006
No thanks. I have a horrible sense of direction and constantly get lost. I
could not live without Google Maps any longer.

