Six ways to never get lost in a city without GPS or Sat Nav

Interesting that of these six methods, only one or two would actually work in the United States, and then only in a few cities.

- England doesn't really do Cable TV like America does, so you actually do see these dishes everywhere. In America, you don't ever see them. You'd probably violate your lease for installing one.

- American cities have hardly any churches compared to Europe, where 5 out of every 7 buildings you pass will be a Church of some form.

- America is 20 years old. Anything older than that is due for replacement. Hence no weathering.

+ (1/2) People. Cool. American cities do in fact have crowds, so you can follow them. But unless you're in NYC, you're probably going to end up at a parking garage.

- American cities tend to follow a grid, and are much more decentralized. Everything you need to get to is in every direction. Every road is six lanes wide, even the dead ends and alleys.

+ (1/2) New York might have clouds, but I've never seen one in LA.

So yeah, if you're lost in a US city, you might as well just ask somebody.

Looking at the sun did me in the first time I crossed the Tropic of Cancer near the Northern Hemisphere summer solstice. I am very used to using sun angle at different times of the day to find cardinal directions. That works very well where I usually live (45 degrees north latitude). But on a visit to Hong Kong, I kept going exactly in the reverse direction I "knew" I should go, and I finally figured out that near the end of June, at the latitude of Hong Kong, the sun was to my NORTH for the first time in my life, and looking at shadows or the sun angle kept reversing my sense of which way was north and which way was south.

As a separate issue during my first visit to Hong Kong, I found my American (and Taiwan) habit of assuming that road traffic drives on the right side of the road made me tend to look the wrong way most recently as I was about to cross streets. I almost got run over by a truck because of that. Habitual behavior is harder to correct than truly novel behavior.

P.S. The submitted article's advice on using wind direction (shown by movement of clouds) as a constant direction over short time spans works very badly here in the American Midwest. There are enough flagpoles in my neighborhood that I can readily observe wind direction as I walk or bike to do errands, and I've frequently seen radical changes in wind direction revealed either by flags near ground level or by clouds high in the sky in just a few hours.

It's cute, but really doesn't do much to address the issue of being lost in a city. When I'm lost in a city, my problem isn't whether I'm heading north or east, or where the nearest station is - it's whether I took the wrong turn three blocks ago, and where that side street I'm looking for is.

I just spent two years driving from Alaska to Argentina, with no GPS and very basic paper maps. I don't think these tips are useful at all to someone constantly on the move in new places. I'm typically excellent with directions and only got "completely lost" a dozen times or so. (For some reason, Bolivia had me convinced North was South...) Those six methods assume a lot that doesn't work everywhere.

1. Tons of places have no satellite dishes.

2. Good idea, but you need to find a town to find a church...

3. Surely you need to be a local to know about weather patterns.

4. Assuming people have jobs, are going to work, and there is some kind of mass transit that stops at some kind of known location regularly.

5. You have to already know if you're North or South of the city..

6. What? again, you would have to know which way is North/South before you look at the clouds.

The other thing that it might be possible to do though obviously not if you are a complete introvert is ask someone.

I'd rather just look at the sky and see the direction of sunrise or sunset to find the direction instead of looking for TV satellites or churches etc.

And, I can't help but notice that the author starts by saying these are the ways to find directions when GPS is knocked out or if there is no one around to ask for directions and later speaks about following the flow of people!

I have personally tried walking off randomly in Paris. I didn't use any map or GPS or even my direction sense. I just kept walking randomly and I realized it is very difficult to get lost in a city like Paris even if you wanted to. You pick any direction and walk for about 15- 20 minutes and you would definitely find at least a sign post pointing in the direction of a nearest metro station, and once you are in a metro, you are in the grid, you are not lost anymore! And of course, in a city like Paris there are always people around irrespective of the time of the day to ask for directions.

We were in Marrakech earlier this year - I really tried very hard not to get lost, but it's almost impossible not to. Even the GPS on an iPhone and Google Maps didn't help that much (and produced a horrific bill for roaming charges). Far easier to pay one of the locals to walk you to where you want to go - at least round the souks where it is completely maze like.

Another approach to in-city navigation is, of course, to have a centrally located conspicuous landmark. In this town an ancient castle on top of an extinct volcano serves splendidly in this role.

I'm from Chicago where the streets are gridded n/s/e/w and the addresses are numbered according to distance.

"Block numbers are consistent across the whole city. Standard blocks, of 100 addresses each, are roughly 1/8th of a mile long. (Hence, a mile is equivalent to a street number difference of 800.) Each street is assigned a number based on its distance from the zero point of the address system, the intersection of State Street and Madison Street. A street with a W (west) or E (east) number runs north-south, while a street with a N (north) or S (south) number runs east-west. A street's number is usually written on street signs at intersections, below the street name. Major thoroughfares are at each mile (multiples of 800) and secondary arteries at the half-mile marks. Thus, Western Ave at 2400 W is a north-south major thoroughfare, while Montrose Ave at 4400 N is an east-west secondary artery.

In general, "avenues" run north-south and "streets" run east-west." - http://wikitravel.org/en/Chicago

General - http://www.chicagohomeestates.com/info/chicago_street_guide

Another way of finding your way around is city route numbers.

In South Africa most major routes in metropolitan areas have "M" numbers (metro route numbers). I once managed to navigate across Johannesburg using these alone. Unfortunately, in Johannesburg at least, they are not widely noticed by the public, except on freeways, and increasingly not replaced when they are vandalised or stolen, but they are very useful if you know about them, both for finding alternate routes, and for orienting yourself when lost.

They are usually consistently numbered. In Greater Johannesburg, even numbers go east-west, while odd numbers go north-south, and the signs also include a compass direction. In Durban, where there has been a huge number of street renamings, they have become indespensible for me when I visit the city.

EDIT: As an aside, if you ever drive in South Africa, do not rely on Google Maps (which has numerous errors). Rather buy an up-to-date map book or GPS. The map books by Map Studio are quite good.

I used to think I could get around by following street numbers. Because, you know, street 3 is next to street 4 is next to street 5.

Then I discovered in San Jose, 4th street is nowhere near 3rd and 5th street.

Then I discovered in Denver, there are two 21st streets in different parts of town.

Now I have a GPS.

In Europe (1) streets are numbered starting from the end of the street closest to the center of the city. This is very handy for when you're making your way back to the center!

1: though I'm not sure how widely this applies, it's worked for me in several countries.

Use paper maps?

I got lost in Venice once when i'd just arrived. It was midnight on a sunday and there weren't many people around as I was trying not to think about the film "Don't look now". It was about then that i realised that although i had what looked like the hotel's address, it wasn't going to be quite that simple to find.

I gave a presentation about this a few years ago. It's pretty UK centric.

http://tomtaylor.co.uk/talks/eight-ways-to-orientate-yoursel...

Yea, try doing this in Venice, then talk to me :)

This is great advice, but I just read the title as "Six ways to never have fun in a city"

I think the author is trying to say, "use your sense of locality; you know, that thing we're all born with". Ironically, we don't really need to put an effort into using the tricks the author conjured up - it's all automated in other ways as part of the process of orientation. But, yes, I am aware of the fact that a small percentage of the population has practically no mentionable sense of locality at all, and may need to navigate manually rather than relying on inherent abilities.