A teacher told me that women tend to remember certain landmarks and distances while men tend to remember street names.
Personally, I remember certain landmarks in relation to my destination. For example: my grandmother’s condominium building is about a block from the nearest Staples and it’s in the opposite direction from the mall my parents work at. I cannot, for the life of me, remember certain street names. When my friends ask me to draw a map to my house when they’re coming over for the first time, I’m totally blank. Same thing happens when people call me and ask for directions. I have to ask them if they see this building and where it’s situated (left, right, front, behind).
I navigate by street names and a mental map. Landmarks are nice, but I’d rather look for a route number than a donut shop. For the most part, I know where I start and I know where I want to end up, and I get there following the map in my head. It amazes my husband, who is a big user of landmarks.
I really don’t know, but once I have been somewhere, I never need to ask how to get there again.
Went to a motel in Palm Springs once, somewhat difficult to find as it was situated off the end of a dead end street. Nine years later, on our second trip to Palm Springs, in the dark and during a rainstorm, I found the way to the hotel without a minute’s hesitation.
Happens to me a lot. Places I haven’t been to in years. Can walk down two blocks, turn left, turn right, and find that little restaurant we discovered years ago. Drives my SO nuts that I can do this, as he has trouble finding the dairy aisle in a supermarket.
I’ve heard a lot of variants on the “women think x, men think y” tales. In the end, they all contradict one another.
In urban areas, I think in plans, I visualise maps. In rural areas, I trust maps - I’ll consult the thing, and make a rough estimate at distances, so I know I’m doing x miles on one road and y on another.
I do the same at the OP. I can remember my way out of someplace by thinking, “I made a right turn to get in the parking lot, so I’ll have to make a left to get out.”
I’m the same way. Mr. Kiminy and little Kiminies are frequently amazed at how well I can navigate to any place I’ve been to before, regardless of how far it is or what the conditions are.
I definitely rely a lot on landmarks, but that includes the roads themselves. I can’t remember route numbers or road names to save my life, at least not until after I have learned what the road looks like and how it curves.
Mr. Kiminy tends to use road names, but that doesn’t do much good here in Louisville. Most major roads here have multiple names–the route number, the name on the street sign, and the name all the locals use that isn’t officially recorded anywhere at all. Since he grew up here, he tends to use the locals’ names for a lot of roads. When we moved here together about seven years ago, I was usually pretty lost because the directions he gave me either didn’t correspond to signs posted to officially identify the roads (or referred to non-existent landmarks–see below). I eventually worked out an internal map and a collection of landmarks that allows me to navigate the city more efficiently than even my husband does.
Like the road names, people in Louisville tend to give directions based on non-existent landmarks (“across from the old Circuit City,” or “turn left where the water tower used to be”). These kinds of directions do NOT help those of us who rely on landmarks to navigate new areas.
If I’m going someplace for the first time, I prefer street names and distances. ex. Take Main St for 2 miles, left on Smith Ave for 3 miles, etc. If there are landmarks or other stuff like, left on Smith just past the fire station, that’s an added bonus.
Once I’ve been someplace, I can usually see a map of how to get there in my head and I follow that.
I’m a purely visual person. If I peruse a map, I’ve got it in my mind’s eye. Once I drive a route it is very very rare for me to forget it. ( The weird exception is the route to Rockport, Maine heading north from Portland to Rockport. Somehow I always fuck that up. But, I digress… )
I drove to Atlanta once in 1996, and knew every turn and roadway to take when I did it again a few weeks ago. Right down to which exit would put me facing Spondivit’s, just north of the airport. This is important cause they have burgers to die for.
I understand this matter as the difference between “vector people” and “landmark people.” I’m a vector person, meaning I imagine directions and orientations rather abstractly, with very little visualization. When a landmark person gives me directions I get very impatient, thinking “don’t tell me I’ll see a McDonalds, just tell me where to turn” – meaning the street name or number, or even “the second traffic light.” I always worry I’ll miss the more detailed landmarks while driving…and as often as not I do miss them.
It’s not necessarily a sex-based distinction, though. I’m male, but my mother is a vector person too. And some of the most frustrating (to me) landmark people I know are men.
I just have a map in my head all the time. If I’ve been somewhere once, I can get back there.
A couple of years ago, I had to drive from my hometown of Elmira, NY up to Syracuse to catch my flight home. On the way, I drove to my old house in Camillus. Drove right up to it, no mis-steps at all… despite the fact that it had been over 31 years since I lived there, at the age of 6. Then I drove over to my elementary school. Same thing, no mis-steps. I just followed my mental map.
Add me to the visual map list. My visual memory is very strong. People can usually rattle off directions to me, and I’ll start mapping it out in my head. Ask me what any one given part of the directions is, and I’ll be completely lost. Stick me in a car though, and I’ll get there 99.9% of the time.
My kids claim that I can’t get lost. We had a little mantra that “Mommy doesn’t know where she’s going, but we’ll get there anyway.” We’d hop in the car and they’d take turns telling me which way to turn, and then I’d have to get back home again. Never did get lost, and got to see all kinds of new places we never would have otherwise.
What’s particularly odd, at least to me, is that my geography is actually quite horrendous. Until about 6 months ago, I thought New Zealand was east of Australia; that Greenland was part of Europe, and I always visualize Colorado as being somewhere between California and Nevada. Go figure.
I hate landmarks. Don’t give me landmarks to direct me, I’ll get lost.
I need clear streets and turnoffs. If you try it the other way, I’ll go on Mapquest and get those things. I need very precise directions, I’m somewhat directionally challenged.
Check out the book Inner Navigation: Why we Get Lost in the World and How we Find Our Way by Erick Jonsson; it’s an interesting little book on this very subject.
I must be unique, because I can navigate just fine using landmarks, or road names/numbers. I prefer road names and distances, and that’s how I give directions (I might include a landmark or two if I know the road is badly marked, or easily missed.) I also have the ability, as others have mentioned, to get to any place I have been to before, provided I saw how to get there. If I slept in the car on the way there, I might not be able to get there, or if it was really dark out the first time I went there AND I wasn’t driving, I might need reminding, but as long as I am driving or paying good attention, it’s in that giant map in my head forever.
Honestly. I have intense problems navigating anywhere. Mapquest and CTA’s Trip Planner are my new best friends. In a different city, I just hope everyone I’m with knows where they’re going.
I navigate by street names. What I may consider as a landmark won’t be a landmark to someone else. I tend to visualize my neighborhood as a map and am still somewhat unaware of the landmarks here in relation to streets.
