Who can read maps?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Female map lover here. Will read them for fun, am always the navigator, etc. I do not turn the map with each turn, that’s just silly. But the females on my mother’s side of the family are terrible map readers.

I also prefer to have a combination of concrete directions (street names, mileage, etc.) and landmarks for confirmation, and I’m told I give very good directions because that is the kind I give. But I CANNOT stand it when people give vague, confusing, out-of-order directions. Just give me the address and a map and I’ll find it.

I do understand that some people have poor spatial skills (interpreting right-left turns, visualizing a route, etc.), and that hinders them in map reading – so now I can at least try to have patience with them. But I have a hard time imagining that mental state.

22

If you like reading maps, give the sport “Orienteering” a try. It’s a world-wide sport, combining map reading and hiking (and just a bit light compass reading). That’s probably the merit badge that Fern Forest earned. In the US, look at www.us.orienteering.org for info on meets scheduled near you (in Minnesota for example, look at www.mnoc.org). Try it, you’ll be hooked!

23

I’d like to think I am pretty good at map-reading. Unfortunately, I must be pretty good at driving, because I usually have to act as the driver for my map-readingly challenged friends.

One of them will never admit she sucks at map-reading, she’ll claim: “The building/street/whatever wasn’t ON the map.” That was pretty annoying when we were lost in Toledo and she couldn’t find the castle on the map (it was huge and marked with #1, too, when I checked, but I’m sure it wasn’t there before).

On the other hand, I suck at directions. North, South, East, West - I am not a compass. I need landmarks - please tell me to turn “left at the huge McDonalds” and not “turn West after 3.5 km”. But since I know it’s like that I’ll make sure that people give me appropriate directions so I don’t get lost.

24

I’ve had cause to think about this a lot over the years. My mom is a born mapreader. I’ve always had trouble. I’ve also always had problems telling left from right.

When I was a kid, I learned to write backwards with my left hand, in emulation of my extremely cool teenaged neighbor, who did it in emulation of Leonardo daVinci. I can still do that, though since I haven’t practiced much since then, my left-hand backwards handwriting looks like a 12-year-old’s. I don’t know if this was easy for me because I’m naturally ambidextrous or because I trained myself.

My undergrad degree is in acting and theater, and I had to take stage combat and dance classes to get my degree. I discovered that I really relate to the world differently than most folks seem to. “Left” and “right”, for me, it turns out, are not something I ever attached to my own body, but rather to my environment. Therefore, whenever I change my relationship to the environment, I need to re-establish leftness and rightness before I can follow directions again. So in dance class, introducing a turn to a combination of steps totally fucked me up, because I didn’t have time to do that re-establishment.

If dance combinations were to be typically described in terms of points on the compass, I would have had a chance at being a decent dancer, 'cause those don’t change. Yay for north south east and west!

In stage combat class, I learned broadsword “left-handed” because I managed to hurt my right wrist just before we started the broadsword unit. My fightmaster was amazed to find out that I did just as well as a left-handed broadsword fighter as I had as a right-handed rapier-and-dagger fighter – he was sure I’d be hopelessly confused, but since I’d never believed in the difference between my left and my right anyway, it didn’t make any difference to me. It was the only bonus associated with my corporeal dyslexia.

And then there’s the problems with “stage left and stage right” versus “house left and house right”… and then you get directors or fellow actors who confuse those things… and I had a problem.

I mostly solved my problem by having a little tiny L tatttooed onto the thumb-edge of my left wrist and an R on my right. (And yes, smartass, I made sure I got the correct letter on the correct wrist. And no, smartass #2, I do not have any other body parts labelled. Sheesh. Somebody always asks, don’t they?) To this day, I gotta look at those labels to give people directions, but hey, they’re always there, so I’m OK.

When I was out of college, I had occasion to create a map for the area around a job I had. It showed all the businesses, other buildings, and related features. (I created it in MS Word using its drawing features, but that’s another saga entirely.) It took me a few weeks to finish, and in the process, I learned that when I navigate, it’s kind of like a narrative. In this narrative, there are “turn events”, but I visualize the narrative like a movie screen: the screen stays in front of me. So landmarks work better than spatial instructions because they are easier to visualize in this way. Does that make sense? It’s hard to describe.

In talking with my husband about this, I realized that he navagates in an entirely different way – he “feels” the change in direction kind of like I “feel” gravity showing me upness and downness. So in a way, he’s using the sense of touch to help navigate, while I’m using the sense of sight exclusively.

How do you all mentally represent navigation?

25

Should have saved yourself the cost of the tatoo–hold your hands up, palms away from you and extend your thumbs toward each other: your Left hand makes an L.

With new construction and such, I can’t always guarantee the same thing, but on our trip to Seattle, last summer, I drove to several campgrounds and other locations without using the map, even though I had only been to them once before in my life, when I made a similar trip in 1981.

I do not have a room large enough to do it, but a friend cut away the borders from all the USGS topographical maps of our county and the east end of the next county (she lives on the western border of ours) and papered a wall with them.

I own a few hundred road and national maps along with at least 16 world atlases (either current or historical). I was the navigator on family trips beginning when I was 10 and I still prefer to do my own navigating when I drive. (Once I’ve gone over the route a couple times, I can follow it even without the map, and use the maps only for time/distance estimates once we’re moving.)

Deb had to teach herself to read maps–and did a great job–when she had an earlier job as a visiting nurse. She recently returned to that field, but vastly prefers to get directions from Mapquest.com rather than looking at the map. (We’ve been in this house for seventeen years, with the sun rising in the front each morning and setting in the back each evening, and she still has to ask which “way” north, south, east, or west are in relation to the house if the subject comes up.)

26

Female (who has always done great on the spatial relationship tests, btw)
Love maps. I like looking at them and planning out on them, etc.

If I have one (an accurate one) I’m fine - and won’t get lost (or won’t get lost due to the map) So long as everything is right where the map says it is.

My problem is inaccurate/out of date maps. Or no map, but instructions like “North,” “East,” “West,” and “South” proceeded or followed by some distance. That means nothing to me. A representative scale down on paper - great! But I have no innate sense of direction, so maps are a wonderful substitute.

27

One theory I’ve got is that, when they are turning, some people think “left, right, up, and down”, and some people think “clockwise, anticlockwise”. A prime example of this is the old computer game Micro Machines - the cars are seen from above, and move around a “map” which always remains in the same orientation. The joystick only functions exactly as left-right when the cars are moving up the screen. The moment they turn, the joystick is only moving the car right and left relative to itself - in other words clockwise or anticlockwise. I’ve noticed that some people just cannot play this game. They steer fine until the car makes its first turn, and then they lose it. I have also noticed a male/female divide with this game, but then us geeky guys might just be more used to playing video games.

28

I thought I was the only “map geek”. Good to know I’m not alone. When I was a kid I drew a map of a fictitious state, complete with cities, highways (intertstates with exit markers, national and state routes, route numbers), national forests, rivers, lakes, landmarks, counties, everything. I must have spent close to two years on it. In the 9th grade we studied Idaho history. At the beginning of the year we were given the semester final exam to see how much we already knew (we weren’t graded on this, of course). I scored the highest and got all the answers right on the map portion of the test because I had studied the map of Idaho so much.

I like going to Mapquest and looking up various cities just to see what the street names and the street layouts are like and then compare them to what it’s like around here.

29

Yeah, this is the third most frequent comment I get (after “Are you SURE they got the letters on the right hands?” and “So what ELSE do you have labelled, eh?”

It doesn’t work because the right-handed, backwards L looks just as L-like to me, especially if I’m in a hurry or already confused. I should never have learned to write backwards with my left hand.

I also tried wearing rings on one hand and even painting the two sets of fingernails different colors and cutting them to different lengths. But it was still taking me too long to convert the information. (“OK now, are my rings on the right hand or the left one? Damn, there goes my cue!”)

30

I’m glad you like them. I used to be a cartographer. Dullest. Job. Ever. But I did get to travel to such exotic locals as Iowa City, Iowa; Bismark, North Dakota; Rapid City, South Dakota; and Mankato, Minnesota.

That was nearly twenty years ago, and I still can go to those towns and know where everything is.

Due to that experience not only am I am an exceptional map reader, and I can amaze my wife with my inate abilty to find liquor stores/hardware stores/or grocery stores in any strange town I come across. They all tend to be in the same types of neighborhoods, and that can be easy to hunt for if you know what to look for. I once was unable to find a liquor store in Moose Lake Minnesota, other than a bar that sold high priced off sale. My wife’s image of my abilities was shattered.

31

I am a definite map and road geek. I flip through my atlas all the time and doodle entire cities, with highways, roads and intersections. Interestingly, while my mother cannot read maps well, she loves nautical charts and can understand them instantly. Go figure.

32

My wife and your ex must be twins. :rolleyes: She “gets” the fact that she has to undo all her turns, but has to think very hard about it. Me, I just turn, because I “feel” the direction in the sense that emilyforce mentioned.

mipiace, didn’t you also reply in that thread about women with strong libidos and men without? Hmmm, maybe we should meet… :stuck_out_tongue: (Gee, a situation in which the winking guy has the wrong connotation.)

33

Oops, I meant to actually answer the op! I love maps. My wife likes them, but struggles to use them. Like some others here, my sister studies them for fun.

And mipiace, perhaps one reason your ex is your ex is the attitude: "I made sure my kids understood from a young age it was really a handicap for him. "? Or, no drive, no spatial perception, maybe he’s gay?

34

Is it impolite to say I don’t understand how someone could not read a map? :confused: To me it’s like saying you don’t know how to move your legs and walk…

(I’m great with maps, but my brother’s lousy with 'em.)

35

I’ve been looking into this Geocaching thing. Sounds like fun, if a bit expensive to get the GPS solely for that purpose…

jjimm, I know what you mean about the computer games. We used to play Grand Theft Auto a lot and I’ve had trouble with the steering, too. I think it’s the fact that you have to combine two different things: the view “from the top” that you actually see vs. the steering that goes contrary to what you expect from games.

Don’t know if that’s a spatial ability thing - with me it worked out after some practice, but it still takes an effort, and one of my friends never got the hang of it at all.

36

It’s a skill, like any other, that has to be learned. A friend of mine who has travelled more than anyone I’ve ever met has a theory: as a gross generality, people in the third world can’t read maps. But they’re usually too polite to decline your request for directions. Therefore he always hands people the map upside down. If they turn it back the right way up, then he trusts their directions. If they don’t, he asks someone else, or tries to figure out where he is on his own.

37

Quickly reading this thread, it’s interesting that nearly all the map-reading experiences here seem to relate to driving.

I was introduced to the joys of map-reading at a young age, walking in the Lake District in England with my father, who taught me about things like contour lines from the excellent Ordnance Survey 1:50000 maps. When I joined the scouts, we had plenty of opportunity to learn proper use of map and compass, including one memorable descent from a mountain during a blizzard.

I do agree that maps can be beautiful to look at though. Most of my school exercise books were faithfully covered with cheap travel maps of Europe and America, and I’m always excited when my National Geographic arrives in the mail with a map supplement.

38

I was on a road trip once, and I took a little nap and let my other friend be the navigator for a while. She’s the kinda gal that gives us mappy gals a bad name. When I woke up we were on county roads in the CA central valley. Despite the fact that the road names didn’t match up correctly, I still was able to figure out where on the map we were, and more importantly, how to get from where we were to where we wanted to be.

One of my prouder moments.

39

I have no sense of left or right, I find it impossible to hold a mental image of how the map relates to the actual roads and I can’t find north, south, east or west. They just do not click for me. Maps honestly make no sense to me. I’ve tried, I have really tried but it’s just gibberish.

I don’t navigate at all for Mr P. It’s just not worth the drama.

40

I make maps for a living. Not as a cartographer, though. My maps are geophysical maps which I must integrate with geological maps and datums. It makes no difference to me what angle I contemplate a map from, as the internal geometry of an individual fault block, while definitely related to the surrounding geological structuring and stratigraphy, are often entirely independent of North and South or East and West.

But, the geospatial definitions of the datums used to construct these maps are most assuredly rooted in our traditional systems of orientation.

When I’m not working, I am of those who have a “grid in mind” and can usually locate myself pretty well.