Female designated navigator, here. Several years ago my boss took the office staff to Florence, Italy. I would arrive at the hotel after sight-seeing and find messages at the front desk from my boss (who had been there 7 times). She was lost and needed me to come find her. This happened every other day or so during our stay.
When I was little we had a world atlas that I loved to look at. Seems I could read maps as soon as I could read at all. Love them!
The DeLorme topographical maps a the best book-bound ones but if you want something really spectacular, check out Paven Maps. You can get huge wall-sized topos that are absolutely wonderfully detailed. I got one of Washinton state for my Dad and would love to get more!
I can read a map with some accuracy. As long as the map is detailed, and not a highway map.
Put me down as another guy who loves maps. I have a wide variety of them on my wall and otherwise scattered about my room, with a system of color-coded pushpins to note locations of interest. My love of maps tends to dovetail with my fascination with world events.
I’ll also sometimes pick a country at random and see how much of it I can map freehand - including roads, pipelines, etc. - until I have to look the rest up.
Hey, it’s a hobby.
My SO and I like to sit up in bed and read maps.
I enjoy navigating on road trips.
I don’t think it is quite so simple. I taught myself to read maps at age six with a township map and the key from an old hand-me-down third grade text book. It was pretty intuitive at the time. I can glance at a part of a map and often recognize what it depicts even when I can’t see the text, just by the outlines of the political boundaries or by the highway patterns or railway patterns, river paths or coast/shore boundaries. Deb taught herself to read maps, but has to re-teach herself each time she goes to use one.
Obviuosly, there is some education involved in reading a map and I suspect that there is a great deal of cultural background that goes into understanding many maps. However, I believe that “brain wiring” also plays a large part in the ability to read maps (or the lack of same).
Another map lover here. Road maps, topo maps, nautical charts, satellite images. Love our GPS, too.
Oh, MAPS! One of my favorite things in the world! Maybe it was because my father was a history/geography teacher, but I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t have maps around me and know how to read them. Topo maps are my favorite. Inaccurate maps, or crappy gas-station road maps make me nuts. I can’t tell you how happy I was when I started learning to fly and I got my first sectional chart. I buy boating charts even though I don’t own a watercraft. When I first heard about GPS I almost wet myself with joy. When I finally got a GPS receiver I reached nirvana. Geocaching is one of my favorite things in the whole effin’ world. And early in my career as a programmer I actually got hired to write mapping software! w00t!
Incidentally, although I have an excellent sense of direction and never had any problem reading maps, I have to think about left and right in order not to screw them up. I have no idea why. I nearly botched my driver’s license test because I signaled wrong for a split second because I was told to “turn right” and didn’t think about it first.
I had never met anyone who couldn’t read maps until I met my last girlfriend. She had absolutely no clue about them. She didn’t even know the most basic things, like the fact that Boston was east of Greenfield, MA (where we lived). I couldn’t conceive of someone who’d made it through grade school and didn’t know the compass points. And she’s a smart woman, too. Go figure.
I don’t “love” it, but I’m pretty good at it. I do get frustrated with the damn SIGNS in the lower 48 though.
My mom tells me it’s perfectly normal and that everyone knows how to do it, but I find putting a teensy lavender colored sign 2 feet from the exit you want to take, (okay, I’m exaggerating a little), QUITE frustrating.
But with the map reading portion, and navigating, (other than my ancient eyes missing the teensy “this is your exit” signs) I consider it pretty good fun.
BTW pestie, I’m one of those who didn’t learn the points of the compass until late in life (around 37 or 38, IIRC).
Oh, I knew the basic NEWS, but not how to orient myself etc. Anyone ever seen “City Slickers”? I think it was in the sequel.
The guys are riding somewhere and they’re discussing “north” and how you can tell you’re going north.
The conversation goes something like this (I only saw it once, YEARS ago, so any diehard City Slickers fans, please forgive me if I butcher the actual scene).
Guy one: How can we tell we’re going north?
G2: We’re heading straight ahead
G1: You’re kidding, you mean to tell me that if we turned around and went the other way we’d be heading SOUTH???
G2: yeah
G1 makes a snort of disgust or some such and basically can’t believe his ears.
I about died laughing at myself, that was SO me.
What’s funny is that in cities, even ones unfamiliar to me, I’m pretty good at it, in rural or wooded areas? Forget it, I’m doomed.
One of the first projects I did as I began my engineering career was a flood study for a large county here in Mississippi. As part of that study, we produced flood plain mapping which includes base flood elevations and delineations of floodplains and floodways. Flood studies are still one of my favorite types of projects. There’s enough science in it to keep me fascinated, while drawing out the smoothly curving floodways appeals to my inner artist.
I also love contour maps. In my work I also delineate watershed boundaries by tracing ridgelines. I especially like the "provisional edition"s of USGS quadrangle maps. They have a lot more interesting stuff noted on them.
Soil maps are cool, too. The Natural Resorces Conservation Service (Formerly SCS) maps the soil types for every county in every state of the U.S. They are drawn on top of aerial photos, so you can see how the different land forms and man-made structures fit in with the different soil deposits.
I love maps. Absolutely love 'em.
>ahem!<
SOME of us women really are just as good at map reading/spatial stuff as men. In fact, I’ve been tested several times on this sort of thing and I consistently outscore 98-99% of the men.
Remember when you hear about a “naturally this that and the other” it’s usually based on statistics and drawn from large samples of people. It’s like saying “Most people are righthanded”. Well, yes, but there are also millions of left-handed people. Or, another one of my favorites - “Women are very rarely colorblind”. Yes, perhaps 1% or fewer of the female population is colorblind. In round numbers, that’s about 80 MILLION colorblind women world-wide - more than the population of many countries. A small percentage, but a large absolute number.
Yo, Johnny, your pilot training is showing! Using both methods of navigation, the nerve! 
I’ve observed (very anecdotal) that women tend to favor pilotage and men favor dead reckoning - but the best navigators of any gender do both, and can switch systems when needed.
Okay, I’m blushing now. I DO have to do that, I have to keep the map “visually accurate” so to speak.
In my defense, the marine battle training handbook tells marines to do JUST that!!
Turn the map so that it’s oriented in the direction you’re facing.