Happy Sunday everyone! It was unusually warm in Chicago this weekend (high 60s, low 70s) and I wish this weather would never leave. Walking around without a coat? Heaven.
But let’s move on to my topic of conversation tonight: the fact that I have zero sense of direction.
I have no idea why sometimes I have this problem getting from point A to B, but I remember failing compass work at camp as a kid. Maybe that sealed my fate.
When I moved to Chicago, I thought I was getting better with direction because I regularly travel certain routes and the city is based on a “grid” system (which I don’t understand, but still.) And with the lake as my point of reference, I do pretty well.
That is until I get outside of the city. And then all bets are off because I get all turned around and confused.
Okay that can still happen within parts of the city, but not as regularly.
And last night when Jamie and I headed out to the a magical place known as…Chicago’s suburbs, we got so lost. We followed the directions the interwebs gave us but the internet is a liar because we so did not end up where we should have.
Technology FAIL.
What is the point of Google Maps, etc. when they take you to the wrong place? WTH?
So after stops at two separate gas stations, we were back on track (thanks to the help of a nice man).
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been to the suburbs and I’m such a novice because, well I don’t have a car and the suburban train intimidates me (sad that I’m afraid of a train? Yeah I know). So I usually stay city-bound.
And now that I live in the city where it’s well-lit almost all the time, it’s amazing how different of a driver I am when I drive back in Wisconsin. I moved from being an aggressive driver (with mild road rage) to being overly cautious. Like 70-year-old grandma cautious. Driving at night suddenly makes me nervous (it’s so dark!) and parallel parking is all but impossible.
I will stick to my work as an awesome co-pilot and hopefully not have to work with a compass any time soon.
Do you have a bad sense of direction? Or do you get lost easily?
Hey there, I was just googling to see if lack of a sense of direction could be linked to a learning disorder of some sort and found your link.
I sooo understand the ‘grid’ system you mentioned – i don’t know how i came up with it either (as a kid) but is the only way i can get around.. yes, with a point of reference – no point of reference… no hope!!
I’m wondering if you get lost in large buildings? or coming out of them??
I was in the defence force and would regularly get lost on the base until i could sort out a point of reference! they were all too unfamiliar for too long to be any use to me LOL!!
I find repetition is the only way i can retain something – a basic trip done SEVERAL times i’ll retain, but then lose if i stop doing the trip!!
In a building i am the same, no point of reference.. no direction!!! even large houses have an element of this – it’s rediculous!! I have only ever met (in my 41years) ONE person the same as me..
i also appear to have the same issue with names… i’ve tried ALL the tricks, saying the name right away, associating the person with something, making a rhyming word, writing the name down, etc etc.. the problem is, they say their name and i forget it before i can repeat it half the time (with surrounding distractions) and when i do remember it to repeat it, its gone almost as soon as i’ve said it… I rarely get a chance to write it down LOL!! it turns out to be far too hard and time consuming.. so I call people ‘mate’.
doh! talking too long – better sign off ;op
have a great day!!
I would be lost without my iPhone map app. No seriously, I would be lost.
I do okay in Minneapolis because 1) it’s not that big, and 2) it is also on a grid and I recognize street names.
Boston, on the other hand….if I didn’t have my iPhone I would have been lost before I even got to the hotel.
I’m pretty airheaded at times but i am suprisingly good with directions
Not to brag, but I am quite excellent with directions! And if I’ve none, I have a great sense of direction and photographic memory, so I’m pretty handy in the car.
Steve, on the other hand, gets lost going to our grocery store. Which is a STRAIGHT SHOOT DOWN THE ROAD.
I got lost picking up pizza the other night only a few blocks from my house. So, yeah, I have an AWFUL sense of direction. It’s amazing I find my way to work every day.
i am so awful at directions, my iphone and separate gps have saved my life. just last week i walked two blocks on the wrong street in the wrong direction trying to find where i parked my car, now that was embarrassing.
Personally, I believe that I have kept MapQuest in business. Street names are of NO interest to me unless I’m reading them off of directions.
I’m thinking maybe this Christmas, I’ll get a GPS under the tree.
Glad you and Jamie made it home safely!!
Oh, gosh, it was like you were describing me. I get lost everywhere! I hate driving at night! I don’t like the Metra! Big difference is that I do live in the suburbs, so I drive all the freaking time. Those poor people around me. And also, being in the city tends to make me nervous, like on Saturdays at Trader Joe’s when the place is WALL-TO-WALL PEOPLE and I think, why is everyone here right now? where is the space?
I have a pretty good sense of direction. For the most part, once I’ve been there once, I can usually get back there with little problem. I never remember road names, so I’m terrible about giving directions to people.
I can’t read a map to save my life. I need landmark directions. I was lucky enough to get a GPS from Santa Claus last year, and let’s just say, it’s been my lifesaver many times.
First of all? That weather was phenomenal. Seriously.
Second? I’m the EXACT opposite. I live in the Chicago ‘burbs (Brookfield) and I can find my way anywhere throughout them. Throw me in the city though? And I’m like a lost puppy. I depend heavily on my phone’s GPS.
Oh the suburbs. They are cute but scary.
I actually have a wonderful sense of direction, BUT google maps has screwed my husband over a few times, and some of the suburbs are VERY confusing. So work on it if you want to. Or don’t! :)
I love with city-dwellers try to venture out to the suburbs. It always makes for great blog fodder!
I depended heavily on my GPS for my drive from Chicago to LA. I’m happy to report that I didn’t get lost once. She (my GPS is female) has continued to guide me through LA for the last week and I think I would seriously die without it. Seriously. Die.
This summer, google maps led me in the TOTAL OPPOSITE direction of a wedding I was the second shooter on! The photog was already lost & I used my google maps to “help” and w ended up almost missing the wedding party!!
Technology fail. Talk about a way to start the day.
I’m all about visual landmarks and more accurate GPS!
Ha ha! I think it’s so funny that you would have a rough time in the suburbs. And your fear of the suburban trains – I have the same thing with the city trains! lol I’m SO much more functional in the burbs. It’s too funny that we probably reside less than an hour away from one another, but it’s such a vast difference! Going downtown is scary to me!!!
In answer to your question, I, thankfully, have a very good sense of direction. In general, I know whether I’m headed north or south. However, I agree, Google Maps is a LIAR! Especially when it comes to the burbs.
I also don’t freak out when it comes to taking a wrong turn. As opposed to my husband who acts like it’s the end of the world! We recently went on a trip to Columbus, Ohio (I know…we’re badass…) and I (the navigator) instructed him to turn too early. Looking at the map, I recognized that we could just go around the block and end up where we started. Hubby, on the other hand, could have let that one wrong turn ruin his whole day.
My sister has a GREAT sense of direction. Me not so much. In fact, I’ve been heard numerous times saying “No. Don’t talk to me in North and South. Talk to me in rights and lefts.”
I don’t even try to navigate unless I’m the only person avaialbe and it’s not because I’m lazy (although that makes it easier). It’s because I feel it is better for all invovled if someone who can actually remember the way we came in, navigate us back out.
I was lucky enough to be blessed with a pretty decent sense of direction, a love of maps and a husband who can tell which direction we’re going by where the sun is in the sky. I must have inherited my sense of direction from my dad because my mom and brother get lost on the regular. Seriously, we just took a family trip to Disney and, with my mother driving, got lost a minimum of three times. We won’t discuss the fact that she brought her GPS and declined to use it.
I can never get lost in the city. If I lose my way, I find it again w/ no help in less than 5 minutes. Stick me in the country, dear God help me!
i get lost SO easily and turned around within seconds. not in chicago, though. :)
also – do not be afraid to take the metra out to the suburbs. it’s not scary at all & it’s EASY!!!
I am horrifically bad at directions. It doesnt matter if I have been there before or not, I am just plain out bad at getting to point A to point B as well. Its been discussed and this year for Christmas I’m getting a GPS for my car, then I won’t have to take my parents as much. Its horrible that I rely solely on technology to get me there but without it, I’d still be in the driveway trying to read a map — which is something that I’ve never mastered either.
Personally, I have an impeccable sense of direction. But, I also know that sense of direction IS NOT directly correlated to brilliance. A very dear friend of mine was valedictorian of our high school class, graduated with a degree in molecular biology from Princeton, went to Stanford med school and is now an attending at one of the nation’s top emergency medicine departments … and she has THE WORST sense of direction. It’s almost comical. Just saying, don’t feel bad for being directionally challenged.
We tried to go from Glasgow to Edinburgh to see a show during the Fringe festival and had two sets of directions (one using google maps) and GPS on my phone and STILL managed to get lost. I swear its a conspiracy…
Once I got lost coming home from the gym. The gym that I had been to countless times on the route that I had taken every single one of those times. I was lost for an hour and ended up finding myself again 45 minutes away from home.
I am lost without my GPS. I can memorize a few oft-traveled routes visually, but don’t ask me to give you directions because I don’t know any of the highway numbers, street names, or which way is north, south, etc.
And compasses? Forget it. I don’t even understand the concept.
If I didn’t have my iPhone with maps and GPS I would be lost all the time whether in the city or in the burbs. When I come up out of a subway station I never know which direction to go. I’ve walked the wrong direction more times than I can count.
Glad you found your way, though!
I’m with you! I get so lost and confused. If it’s not Arkansas I don’t know where I’m at.
Seriously! I have lived since 2006 in the same general vacinity of Chicago Suburbs and I can not for the life of me get unconfused. I have a compass thing on my dashboard that says what direction I’m going but it doesn’t help if I don’t know which direction I should be going!
And don’t ask me about anything about the city of Chicago itself… We took my mom driving around when she came to visit a few months ago and I was so damn lost. I could have sworn we were driving in circles but we ended up from the Pier to Lincoln Park Zoo… I was so lost. But Joe knew where he was going.
I’m sooo lucky to have a man that knows his way around Illinois!
It was funny when we went to my hometown in AR to visit and *I* had to drive because I knew where I was and going and he was lost! And he doesn’t like “passenger drivers” aka me telling him where to turn, etc.
I like to refer to myself as a human map.
(I couldn’t live without my google map and the iphone.)
Both metaphorically and literally my sense of direction is a bit bad in some aspects, in the sense that I have a hard time excepting that sometimes I don’t know where I’m going. I do well in NYC (when I first moved here my goal was to be “off map” ASAP and by month 2 I didn’t carry it around with me anymore. Get me off the numbered grid and it is a bit tougher but I hold my own here.
Have a great week!