I get lost easily. Can't orientate. What to do?

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Hi, folks!

I have a problem with directions when walking or driving. I often take the wrong direction. It seems I don't have the ability to orientate.

If I know how to go from place A to place B, and from place B to place C, it seems I find it difficult to go from A to C or C to A directly. It's as if my brain can't connect them easily.

I need to get to know an area, as well as a certain route, really, REALLY well, before I can navigate.

When driving in a new place, I have a GPS with me, otherwise it's really easy to be found dozens of kilometers off course (not kidding).

Someone once told me: "yeah, this is a girl problem".

Not sure if women have this problem (can't understand why they would). Plus, I'm male, so I ain't sure why he told me that, haha!

So, is this related to being an Aspie?

Do any of you have this difficulty? If yes, how do you deal with it?

Thanks!

Use GPS.
I do it all the time, even when walking.

I get lost in new areas while using a GPS. If you figure out what to do, please let me know.

I'm female and have ASD but I never get lost. I don't know what it's to do with.

I study using google maps. I draw maps/plans and keep notes about street names and such, sum and clean them up on a piece of paper to make the instructions as clear as possible and take the paper with me when I'm going somewhere.

Somebody told me it was a girl thing too and I secretly hate him for saying such a thing.

based on my experience alone (since that's all i have), being directionally challenged has no favorite gender.
people also like to say that being unable to ask for help is a male problem, but i also have not seen that to be the case. i don't know where people come up with some of this stuff.

i have problems with finding my way in human engineered spaces but i find that if i can work with natural spatial indicators and apply that on top of the unnatural grid it is astronomically helpful. then even if i can't get it exactly right, i am able to put myself in the right direction; close enough to it to have a smaller roaming space to more easily figure out the precise location i'm looking for.

I get lost easily too which is why I never leave my house without my smartphone and google maps. I still get lost in buildings however.

My sense of direction sucks. I tend to stick to a small area where I live. The fear of getting lost in an unfamiliar area is quite strong.
Been here over 20 years and if people ask me how to get to nearby places I just can't answer. Have taken to saying I'm a visitor to the area too.


http://www.dyslexia-reading-well.com/di ... lexia.html

I got lost on the way home from a meeting. It changed to a new venue and I found myself hopelessly turned around and lost. If I ever do drive again, I'm using my GPS device.

My sense of direction is superior. I will always know how to get to any place I have been in before (the only exception so far was a monument inside of a forest I last seen 15 years ago and where I traveled by bike - I just couldn't find it last summer while walking around the area, I quess it has something to do with the moving speed - bike is faster so any distance seems shorter than when walking).
It's like I have a map and a compass in my head. I always know where the place I am thinking about is, as if I was seeing an arrow pointing it. All I have to do is choose any street going closest to the direction and repeat that on every crossroad.

The only problem is getting to a place I never seen before or traveling by car on a fast road in a huge, busy city I don't know well.
That's why I usually use google maps (satellite, so I clearly see the buildings) to check the unknown area first. It lets me build the map in my head beforehand. I don't intend to remember all the details - I just make sure I remember strategic buildings (for example "when you see the Ikea get focused and start preparing for your turn") and the general pattern how streets connect ("there is one more long, bigger street parallel to the main street and a network of smaller, perpendicular and parallel streets between them so if I get lost I can use them to return to main street"). Sometimes I draw a simple map with a route and while it helps I usually end up not using it to the T because I find shortcuts and easier ways to get where I wanted, or the google maps route is simply outdated and there is a new building blocking the way, lol.

Sometimes I will get lost but it's usually within 200 meters of the place I was supposed to find. I know I am in the right place but I can't find the exact building or apartment, mostly because the google maps isn't that accurate and I never knew the exact building position in the first place. That's where other people get useful. I spot a person and say "Excuse me, how do I get to XYZ?", eventually showing them a part of google map on my phone or the message with exact adres and company name. Never fails, although sometimes you have to ask 2 or 3 people before anybody knows.

Thanks for all the answers, folks.

GPS and asking people for directions it is then (which is what I have been doing anyway)!

For at least the U.S. anyway, most cities are laid out in the form of a grid, with the center point being whatever is called Main Street and whatever seems to be between 1st Avenue North and 1st Avenue South.

Streets generally run East and West;
Avenues generally run North and South;

You can think of Avenue being something like the Y portion of the co-ordinate;
You can think of Street being something like the X portion of the co-ordinate;

Better yet, I already explained this last year, and you can read about how it works at my original post...

I'm absolutely hopeless with directions. I can get lost in a large-enough room, I get lost navigating to a washroom in a restaurant, and I can get lost going to places I've been to multiple times before. I'm pretty high functioning to the point that no one knows I'm on the spectrum, so it utterly baffles them when I say I can't "follow their directions" to some place and experience a complete meltdown. I just pretend I understand what they're saying and then navigate myself there using GPS/app afterwards.

I'm not sure where you live, but the app I absolutely have to swear changed my life for the better is Citymapper. It works better than Google maps because it has a live updated ETA function (so you can tell people when you'll arrive, or they can see your trip progress themselves), it holds your hand through the trip by telling you when (during your trip) to get off the train/bus/streetcar, which exit to take out of a station, and works offline. I still give myself extra time to get to someplace (about 15 minutes, mostly because our transit system is so s**t there are constant service delays), but other than that, I no longer experience anxiety travelling and I don't turn down doing things/going to places because of my fear of getting lost and stranded somewhere.

I don't usually recommend things, but I gotta for this one app because it made such difference for me. It only works for a few major cities for now, but if you're in one of those cities, it's a godsend. It's also free and doesn't have ads which I don't really understand how, but I'm not interrogating that horse's dental plan.

"I'm not lost. I'm exploring."

i can look at a map and remember how to walk. my memory and sense of direction is great, which is ironic since i don't have the ability to see pictures in my mind.