Walking the dog early this morning, and a guy in an SUV stopped and asked me if there was a hotel/motel close by. As luck would have it, he just needed to turn around, take a left at the 4-way stop, and he would find one.
It occurred to me that it had been a long time since I’d been asked (not that it was a particularly common occurrence years ago, either).
Noteworthy mostly because who doesn’t have a smartphone in the modern world? And the guy looked prosperous enough that I would expect him to have one.
If his wifi wasn’t working, a smart phone doesn’t do you any good. It’s a problem in rural Arkansas for sure. Lots of dead areas.
ETA it would do no good to ask me. I am always lost.
The freeway used to end right next to wear I work. We had a, more or less, steady stream of people coming in to ask for directions. The majority of them were trying to get downtown (and would say ‘but I just came from there’ when I’d point back to the freeway) or to Chicago. The ones headed for Chicago simply took the wrong ramp at an interchange a few miles back and needed directions back to the ‘regular’ freeway that would take them home.
With the invention of the GPS and now smartphones, as well as the freeway being extended about another mile, it’s gone from a handful a day to, maybe, once a week. I’ve always joked that I want to print out magnets or business cards with a small map that shows how to get from where we are to the freeway. It’s very easy, but if you’re in an unfamiliar area I’m sure it’s confusing. Luckily the on ramp is right by a landmark that’s tall enough to see it from where we are and as I’m giving directions I can point to it and say ‘there, head that way’.
And, of course, once or twice a year someone will ask for directions to the airport. I’ve yet to find a nice way to say ‘uh, buddy, it’s right there’. Like, they are talking to me, but if they turn 180 degrees they watch planes landing.
I had someone pull up next to me at a red light on a Beltway off-ramp in Silver Spring, MD a few years ago and ask for directions to Alexandria, VA. I told her she needed to get back on the Beltway and drive for another 15 miles because she was in the wrong state. I still don’t understand how she was so ridiculously off course or how she thought directions obtained through the window at a red light would be sufficient to guide her. There are many criticisms that can be made of the Capital Beltway, but “lack of road signs” is not one of them.
I work next to the Sears Tower, I’m asked for directions once or twice a week during tourist season. Even with a smartphone, the mapping can get off in the Chicago Loop with all the buildings. Plus, Wacker Drive is a bit confusing since it runs both North/South and East/West at different places, not to mention Upper Wacker and Lower Wacker.
This. I worked at Franklin and Monroe and I lived near Broadway and Irving Park. At work people were always stopping me due to Wacker Drive, and at home people were always thrown by Sheridan running east/west until it took over for Sheffield and headed north.
I get lost more than anyone I know. This, despite, usually researching trips via paper or online maps, using GPS, etc. I have absolutely no sense of direction. Once all of the directional artifacts have been exhausted I will generally stop and ask someone for directions.
My family used to travel a lot when I was young and my father stopped quite a bit along the road asking for guidance. I still do it as a last resort.
A couple years ago a friend and I were in Aruba and I got totally messed up with the roundabout system couple with the lack of signage. We had been driving inland with no map, no cell phone and at one point I stopped at a red light and yelled out the car window to a passing pedestrian, “Can you tell me where we are?”
(We had been trying to find our way by reading a local placement sized tour map picked up along the way LOL!)
She looked a bit surprised and then exclaimed , “Why, you’re in Aruba!” She said this with a bit of a chuckle.
Uh, yeah, there’s nowhere else to be besides Aruba once you’re on the island and it’s quite small but there are a lot of inland areas that I hadn’t really anticipated.
I was panicking as it was starting to get dark and kind of lost track of my social skills at that moment. I recovered, stopped at a local convenience store and eventually maneuvered back to the main highway.
I’ll never do that again. Not one of my better travel moments.
I always give bad directions, and I always catch it right after the person drives away. I know my way around the area, in fact I’m confident I would instantly know where I was if dropped anywhere within 50 miles of the Capitol, but the problem is I know how to get myself anywhere, but I don’t necessarily know how to get someone else there. If I were in the car with them, no problem. Conceptualizing and communicating it to someone else while standing on the sidewalk, not so much.
Just today an elderly couple pulled near me as I was locking up my bicycle. they were looking for the La Crosse Queen boat tour place. They had a map and headed in the correct direction.
(Go down this road until it ends, turn left and go ~50 ft, turn right and go to the end of that road)
Nine times out of ten when I get asked for directions, I’m out of town. I don’t know, I guess I must look like I know where I’m going. “Sorry, I’m not from around here” is my usual response.
Last time I (from Seattle) visited NYC I got asked for directions quite often. The funny thing is I had studied the map carefully before I left my hotel, and could almost always give accurate directions. Most of the questions were pretty basic – “which way to Park Avenue?” I might have looked like a native in that I was almost always alone and moving along like I knew where I was going. I have good map reading skills and a good sense of direction. Plus I’m good at making stuff up if I don’t know.
