81–90 of 91 posts
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.
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…
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".
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
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.
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 fig…
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.
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. O…
From traveling in different countries, I've learned to first look for the compass rose before assuming north is up.
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.
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 we…
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Counterpoint: the automatic ice-maker
I'm very confused and interested. What do you mean by that?
Although the iceman interpretation works too ;)
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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. O…
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 :)
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...)
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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.
Venice is also like this. Unless youre following the canal, the city itself is a twisty little maze of passages, all unique.