Hi fellow seniors, do you have a good sense of direction?

In the navigating sense.





I've a poor sense of direction and often get flummoxed when leaving a shop and wonder which was the way in.





Hubby is a little better than me but we do occasionally get lost in the car even on a short journey.





So I was wondering do you think we would benefit from a Satellite Navigation System (I've heard they're not infallible) or just buy an up to date road map, what do you think?|||No.....My wife changes the furniture in the bedroom so often that when I get up during the night to visit the smallest room, i've forgotten where the bed is when I get back to the room. My knee is now used mainly as a device for locating hard wooden objects in the dark.|||I usually EVENTUALLY manage to get where I want to go....although, sometimes, with new streets being built and old streets not going where they used to go....it does involve some wandering around. I must like it more than I would like to admit, as do carry one of those spiral-bound city mapbooks in my trunk, but hardly ever stop the car, get out, get the mapbook, and figure out where I am.





As long as the sun is shining, I can at least figure out what is east or west....cloudy days is an entirely different matter.





My car is an old one, and what I would like to have is not necessarily that navigational system thing...but more the thing that notifies someone if the car dies, or has a wreck, or helps police to locate my car if I disappear and someone in my family figures out that something is wrong %26amp; calls for help to figure out where me and my car have gotten to.





As you can tell from my answer, I am far from a technological whiz-kid, but it does seem that the system...if it includes that "homing beam" thingie seems like a good idea to me. Get it and get a new map, too.|||Yes and my step son's sat nav drives me crazy! He uses it even when the journey is from A to B on the motorway and the only choice you have to make is to follow the directions to the Airport and then keep on until you see the signs for your exit, which you already know. Not only that, his sat nav speaks Turkish! If I hear 'U莽 kilometre sonra, direk.' (In three kilometres, straight on) once more, I'll scream! Especially since direk isn't even correct Turkish for straight on - it's just navigation speak.


I do, however, sometimes get lost in buildings, but that's nothing to do with age. I always did.|||The GPS systems do work; I've seen them in action. My sense of direction has always been good, that is, until we moved to the last town we lived in. It is situated right off the highway, just before the highway goes from straight north to north west. Consequently, every time I get off at that exit, I'm lost as far as direction goes. What is actually east/west always seems like north/south to me. It's just that particular town; any place else my sense of direction kicks in pretty well.|||My husband occasionally loses his way, but rarely. He travels on his job so he has to have a sense of direction. I do pretty good. I know my north south east and west most times to keep me halfway straight. lol We don't have any GPS in our vehicle, as we do not need it for the little traveling we do. My husband will have a new company vehicle in the Spring and it will be equipped with the GPS. I think if you do a lot of traveling, it is a good idea.|||I live in a state that looks like a giant quilt from an airplane. Most roads run north-south or east-west because of the crops. It's usually a mile to the next intersection. While I'm in Iowa, I have a perfect sense of direction. However, I lived in Marietta, GA for a few years where the roads follow old paths, I heard. I couldn't tell which way I was headed. The sun and constellations came in handy a few times.|||I do but my husband does not.He is impulsive about guessing directions on roads,in shops etc %26amp; often wrong which infuriates me so I generally take over all the navigation.One of my sisters has never been able to tell left from right which is worrying when she drives.|||I was told in the Armed Forces (where they would take us out into the swamp and give us a map and a compass and coordinates to find using just those two things) that I have the homing instincts of the best pigeons! They couldn't "lose me" no matter what they did--including blindfolding me to try to make sure I couldn't "see" where I was going. I always seem to know exactly where North is. Maybe I have a high level of magnetite in my brain? That would also help explain why I become so dizzy during earthquakes!





http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/鈥?/a>|||If you purchase the SNS may l suggest that you do not program it to your place of residence. Read on the net that guys broke into a car parked at a football game because they saw the GPS on the dash. Clicked it to home and with a three hour lead they robbed the place. Think about it?|||I have no sense of direction. My father used to say that I couldn't find my way out of a wet paper bag with a road map. The GPS systems are great for some, but I'm told not totally reliable. If construction changes things, the GPS doesn't know that|||I have a terrible sense of direction.Once I leave my right and left hand I'm on Mapquest. That is why I do not have a sense of adventure in the form of traveling.Like my cats,I'm not comfortable outside familiar environments.|||I always thought that my sense of direction was good, esp if I have time to plan my route, but one evening last week I got 'lost' in my local Tesco car park just because I went in by a different entrance.|||Not to brag, but yes.





However, if you decide on a GPS - have a map handy, as backup. Better to have it, and don't need it, than need it, and don't have it.|||Thank goodness for sat nav in cars. If I am on holiday in a strange town/city, after coming out of a shop, I can never remember which direction I was going. ha ha. Maybe that's an age thing.|||No I have an appalling sense of direction..


even routes i`m familiar with..I am also hopeless at


reading maps I don't know how I ever get where I want to be.


I`m getting really hard of hearing so I cant use a sat nav..|||I have a good sense of direction but occasionally get confused with England's roundabouts and with U.S. cloverleafs if I'm in unfamiliar territory|||If you travel alot, yes. You can always stop and ask for directions too. Best wishes.|||Excellent.|||Just call me the get lost kid. I have a messed up sense of direction. Lol.|||Always been able to find my way If ever I can't I ask someone for directions.|||No, not at all. As a matter of fact, I could easily get turned around in a telephone booth !|||I travel a lot for work, as a result I rock.|||I must tell the truth, I have no sense of direction at all.|||Oh, heck no! Sometimes I am not even sure which way is up!|||You'll be well aware I'm the LAST person to brag - but (when not in pitch blackness) I must admit my sense of direction and map-reading skills are very, supremely EXCELLENT.


Straight up - I passed COURSES on reading ordnance survey maps under the watchful eye of the military brass- and even they were amazed at the way I could work out co-ordinates, bombing range, elevations and stuff - faster than they could reload or re-charge their batteries.


So - getting 'lost' on even our crazy road systems - twixt Betjeman's Rime Intrinsica, Fontmell Magna, Sturminster Newton and Melbury Bubb etc - has never been a problem.


But I hear SatNav stuff can screw up such sojourns something rotten - with Dutch. Belgian and/or Lithuanian lorry drivers causing havoc in our smaller hamlets.


Whenever wandering/exploring/discovering the English countryside, my wife's hopeless. hapless, pathetic map-reading deficiencies caused many an angry exchange.


Reading a map the right way up was asking too much - reading it upside down (N/S) threw her into a total tiswas - when asked "Left or right here ?"


However, happy days of fond recall - and I doubt SatNav have 'ironed out' all the usual teething problems. And will never cope with road signs reading NO this, NO that and NONE of the other, etc.


Where I reside, our Parish Councillors have used some of our Ip in the 拢 of Council Taxes - to pay for NO HOSPITAL PARKING in our by-roads. Official looking - they're nonetheless illegal - so patrolling Town Road Planning OFFICERS keep knocking them over. They're not 'empowered' to take them away - but in case they're ever tempted to, our local Parish Reps have recently spent more - to padlock such unofficial signs to the official street signs.


Power to the people !!!


I doubt the day will ever come when SatNav or whoever will ever cope with such things - never mind a maverick 'local' erecting SIGNS of his/her own design - redirecting unwanted traffic up the back end of beyond.


; ))