I've never really owned a smartphone before 2013, despite the first iphone being released in 2007
When I used to travel a lot a few years back, I went extremely low tech. I wanted to appreciate the beauty each city had to offer and nature as it was meant to be.
I didn't have a data plan and would just memorize maps at the hostel before I set off for an adventure.
To tell the time I would simply just look at the sun and shadows projected. I would know this after the first day since I would have some benchmarks there. The sun rises from east and to the west, but the amount it changes per hour depends on what hemisphere you are in. And the season too ?I believe?
Consequently, this is how I would determine where North, East, West, and South is. I would have a mental model in my head based on how many steps I took to know where I am on the map. I used mostly relative positioning and landmarks in densely populated cities to determine this.
I would carry a paper map with me though, in the event I got lost.
The only downside to having no smartphone is that nighttime navigation was extremely difficult. There was no sun to navigate, I couldn't use the northstar since the lights in the city were too bright to see it.
People think I'm joking when I use sun navigation but I am not. Looking up at the sun is actually sometimes faster to determine the time and direction then having to whip out your phone. This was true especially during flip phone times, but not so much because of how useful smartphones have gotten / smartwatches.
Historically using the sun to determine time was how it was always done since Ancient greek / Egyptian times with Sun Dials.
I also used to parasail too, sometimes on the lake I relied on sun navigation to determine where I was at, since whipping out a phone or looking at a compass is sometimes not reasonable at the time. Especailly when I have my hand on the rudder and the other on ?whatever rope controled the mast?