Directionally challenged

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a story my husband has mentioned many times (his overriding life-long special interest has been military history):

During the Civil War, Union recruits were so unlikely to know their right from their left, that it was common to tie some straw to one show and hay to the other, with the drills being "hay foot" or "straw foot" instead of left or right.

I use Google maps and street view before venturing into new territory -- I usually print out the maps and directions to take with me. With street view, I can explore the area before even leaving the house.

I have trouble with going to and from new places as well. If I have directions to a place and stop and think about it, I can figure out how to get back.

I've lived in the city I'm in for almost 7 years and have been driving for 4 of those years. Once two years ago, I managed to get lost going to a restaurant that I go to almost every Saturday. Took the wrong freeway fork, ended up in an area I know well, but yet I couldn't figure out how to get to my intended place without driving around blindly for about 15 minutes and taking an excessively roundabout way of getting there. My wife said she nearly called to find out if I had been in an accident or something.

Every time we go somewhere I have to ask her which way to go if I'm driving. I always find my way to places eventually, but my routes aren't always the most direct and there are plenty of times where I'll turn and she'll ask where I think I'm going.

Well I have a learning disability that impairs spatial/visual knowledge and skills so, yeah I am directionally challenged: can't read a map, don't know north, south, east and west, get lost all the time, am hopeless........

I love google maps

its way better than a regular map because you can see land marks what the area looks like and its useful to explore places without even having to go there

If someone says turn right or left, I have no problem with that. But I do have difficulty finding my way around someplace new like a vacation destination. I can read the map just fine, but after we get someplace, my wife knows how we got there and what is where. But as for me, I am lost. I can hardly tell how to get to the places we have passed on the way in. Once someplace, I lose my sense of direction easily. It takes me several days to begin to get the feel for the place. If I go to a restaurant and go to the restroom, I often turn the wrong way in the restaurant in trying to get back to my seat.

I read maps well (I love maps), and I generally handle navigating a city well (so long as I know where I'm going--I try to make sure I know how to go somewhere before I leave home). I am more apt to get lost or confused in buildings, though, and I sometimes have problems with verbal directions. I'm generally pretty good with distinguishing left from right, but I do get them crossed up sometimes (it happened today, actually).

If people give me directions, I am not able to take them. I don't think it is because I get mixed up with directions though, I think it is because my processing time for verbal speech is delayed, and by the time I finally figure out step 1, they are already on step 5. That being said, I am very good at figuring out directions on my own. I am very visual, so I can see the layout of places in my head once I've been there (or seen a map_, and eventually know how to get around. Very few times have I ever been lost (and I've never been lost without being able to find my way out again). I can drive or walk through places I've never been and end up at a destination I want to be by simply "going east" or whatever. But yeah, FOLLOWING directions given to me verbally is another story. If people write down directions for me, I have no problem though.

I'm the exact opposite of most of you...I never, ever get lost. I can look at a map once, even briefly and remember it for days. I honestly feel like I can tell N, S, E, W even with my eyes closed after being spun in a circle. It's like some innate sense. The rest of my entire family is both very poor with directions/maps and often slow to determine which is their left or right hand .

OMG I'm even worse then. I didn't even know that the left hand made an 'L' and I go blank when people say right or left and I have to look at my hands to remember which one is the one I write with, to know that the one I don't write with is my left. I am also terrible with directions when driving, even with a route that I've seen many times sometimes. I remember the points of the compass by knowing that I live on the South coast and work out the other points from that.

However, oddly, I'm really good at map reading, as a passenger (providing that the map is pointing in the same direction as the route otherwise forget it)...

Interesting, I have no sense of direction either. I don't even know my way around the town I grew up in and have lived in for 30 years. I get very anxious while driving because I am so easily lost (I can only drive routes I'm very familiar with, my mother often says "why don't you go X way instead?" and she may as well say "why don't you go via Timbuktoo?" for all I'd actually be able to get there). I also get lost while walking places, including places I have been before.

I know left from right, but I have no idea how people know which way is north, south, east or west. I haven't a clue.

I got lost walking home from school once, which was really ridiculous and embarrassing because I went that way every day, and began crying because I couldn't remember which road to walk down. A friend's mother stopped and gave me directions, but the woman later made fun of me about it in front of my friend and parents, and I was completely mortified. I try hard to hide my difficulties because of things like that, but I honestly can't find my way to even the simplest places without drawing myself a map or using a sat nav.

This is a consistent problem for me.

Don't just tell me "right" or "left."

POINT!! !! !!

For me, I have to drive around in a new area to get used to where everything is. I'll start to draw a map in my mind for a general picture of what was on what road and where. I sometimes have to use my Garmin GPS if it's somewhere I have to go and never been there so I don't get lost and waste time.

I had a GPS. I got rid of it because it doesn't point.

The Navman GPS we had was so crap it got us even more lost than without it! The voice said "turn left" right as you were on the turning as well, so it was too late to slow down and indicate to turn safely. I just print off Google map instructions these days.