# How do you remember directions? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 2, 2005, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remember-directions/319657 "2005-09-02T00:11:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2005, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remember-directions/319657/21 "2005-09-02T18:23:02Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > And yet, you found Pretoria. I always thought it was Praetoria. Hmmm… 🙂 Luckily my part only involved finding JFK. The rest was out of my hands 😉 Besides, South Africa was pretty much the only country I was ever able to locate on the African continent when I was a kid. ---
**Author:** ![catnoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ab992/32.png) [@catnoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catnoe)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remember-directions/319657/22 "2005-09-04T05:59:13Z")
Can’t remember road names to give directions to save my life and I can’t say drive x-miles till you get to whatever, not good at judging distances. I guess I navigate by landmarks and the internal compass that one of my two sisters also uses. The first time it really clicked that I could do this was in Rome. Hubby on Med cruise and I go to me him, my first trip to Europe. We lost out map the third day there and I proceeded to navigate us about for the next five days. Three years later, we were stationed in Naples and we went up to Rome. Without a map, and no wrong turns, I got us to the hotel near Piazza Navona from the train station. The only time I took a map with us to room was if we had people with us so they could have the map in case they got lost. Catch of road names when we were in Naples was that the street names were not always placed where easily viewed if placed at all. When visiting some one for the first time directions were given as: take ‘this’ exit off the Tange, turn left at the Agip station, about a mile and a half bear right past the orchard, look for three dumpsters, two green and one grey. At the trattoria just past, turn right, second house on the right. Look for a blue car out front. A hand-drawn map was usually given also with landmarks marked. These were saved and collected for later visits and for reference when visiting a place near to there. When I am going somewhere new a map is important for the big picture. Hubby can navigate and give me directions but I need to see the route once for the directions to make sense and to have a mental picture filed. This came in handy a month or so ago while driving in the sticks of NC and having to rely on old highway numbers. I’m usually good at knowing how to get to a place after one trip there, more if I’m not the driver, sometimes though it takes more than one trip to learn the route, especially when there are not a lot of landmarks to note (like in the sticks). ---
**Author:** ![catnoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ab992/32.png) [@catnoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catnoe)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remember-directions/319657/23 "2005-09-04T06:01:02Z")
Must remember not to post past bedtime - major typos in that post and I can’t edit them!!! ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remember-directions/319657/24 "2005-09-04T22:27:52Z")
> [@TellMeI'mNotCrazy](#): > > 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 I don’t know what you think happened six months ago, but New Zealand is still east of Australia, just as it always has been. ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remember-directions/319657/25 "2005-09-04T22:37:03Z")
Just goes to show you. I thought it was west until 6 months ago. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2005, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remember-directions/319657/26 "2005-09-05T00:40:19Z")
By the seat of my pants. No, really. I remember how a given route feels. “Yup, I should turn here.” I don’t really remember landmarks. They can confirm after I’ve made a turn - but they’re never there at the turns. I just get the feeling, okay, now on this route, I had to lean that way to counter the force of turning. It’s weird. My father does the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remember-directions/319657/27 "2005-09-06T03:03:55Z")
> [@E. Thorp](#): > > 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. From what I’ve heard, men are much more likely to rely on distance and direction, and women are much more likely to remember details and landmarks. Like any sexual difference, it’s not a 100% rule, but a strong trend when the populations are compared. I forget where I read this, but men are much more likely to get lost if a way of measuring distance is impaired in some way, whereas women are more likely to get lost if the directions require finding a landmark in relation to another without an intermediary step or detail. Where you live influences this, I think. Japan has almost no marked roads, so I constantly get “chick” directions that have far too much detail (i.e.: “turn left at the funny looking tree with the shrine in front of it”) and not enough direction and distance information for my style of navigation. You simply can’t give simple “guy” directions like, “take Ito to Nanboku and turn left,” without some kind of landmark or detail information. It drives me nuts. I’d rather have compass directions and a pace counter than the super-detailed and almost-useless (to me) directions I get sometimes. I’m like **OtakuLoki** in that I have some kind of sense for how far and what direction my end point is from where I am now. In a new place I have to find two points for relation. In the interim I rely on direction changes, but once I have two points fixed in my head I can find almost anything in relation to those points, even in the dark. If I’ve been to a place once I can almost always find it again. I had to go back on foot to a place I’d been driven to, once, over 3 years previous. I kept missing the place and walking around it because there was a car parked in the access alley and I mistook it for a driveway. It drove me nuts because I was certain of how far and what direction the place was, but I couldn’t find a way to get to it. Typically “male” and “female” navigating strategies are stronger when combined. My girlfriend can pick out signs and details way before I can, so she finds those things. She gets lost if you take even one turn out of order and almost always chooses wrong when it comes to picking a direction without a visible landmark, so I provide directions and relational distances. Alone, I might miss a landmark, and she’ll go the wrong way from the start, but together we never get lost. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remember-directions/319657.md?page=1)