Some people just won't listen!

JessM - you are mistaken, according to a local Town Council officer north is uphill!!! And she wasn't the only one to think that.

I have a good sense of direction but when I visit New Zealand I am completely disoriented.The sun is in the wrong place!

I can read a map beautifully, when it's on a table in front of me. It's the actual roads that mess things up.

Thank God for Sat navs!

Course it is, gadabout! When we used to travel down to Oxford we always thought of south as all downhill after Tebay service station

as in more crowded, fewer hills... etc

I have just travelled from my home in the Alps to visit a friend in Charente, near Limoges. I copied the route from viaMichelin, but thought it seemed rather circuitous, but when I actually used it realised they had planned it so well that I hardly touched a single town or village, in 650 kms. It took me 7 hours of driving and another one for coffee and comfort stops. I may map read my own way back on Saturday, as I will have all day and I like seeing new villages and towns

So was that motorway all the way!

Helooo G/Nan, wondered where you had been ?
xxxx

Sounds superb, Greatnan! Hope you have a good journey back, and also some good times before them. Amuse- toi bien.

Not quite motorway the whole way,but a major A road without a single holdup. I went via Bourges on Bresse (great ravines crossed by towering viaducts), Lyon, Villefrance, Macon, Moulins, Montlucon, Gueret and Limoges. Yesterday I went to Anglouleme and today I am going to the the Lac de St. Pardoux. It has remained very hot all week.

I love just looking at maps and can follow one, but, I do turn it to the way we are travelling.
We have gps. in the car and yes, it is great for getting from A to B. However when I am on holiday I like to have a proper map to pore over and decide where looks nice to visit. I know you can get an overview with a 'navvie' but you cant see the whole area at once.

By the way, Nonu may be joking, but, I know a number of women who won't drive at night. Won't drive on Motorways and are totally amazed if they discover that I (a woman) have driven myself more that 50 miles or so. Mind you they are the same women who won't sit in a café on their own and would certainly never consider just pootling about on their own for a day out.

Ginny glad you picked up , However it doesn't bother me one jot to drive at night , same as it does not bother me one jot to share the driving of 6,000 miles round the USof A.
It also does not bother me to drive through the centre of Chicago , L.A., Dallas or any other big conurbation you care to mention.
I just do not map read , simple as a pimple !!

I can't read maps either.

If I ever have to drive to an unfamiliar part of the UK on my own, DH very kindly draws me a simple route map - it gives him an excuse to use the GC's felt-tip pens and feel helpful into the bargan!

He does it for other members of the family too - even if they neither want nor need them...

Ana &

Ana there's an idea for a C*******s present then

Sat navs don't give you the contour details that os maps do, nor tell you that there is the site of a roman villa round the corner. They also don't tell you if the church round the next bend has a spire or a tower.
If the next church has a tower and os map says it has a spire, you're on the wrong road!

That isn't what the sat-nav is for! It's for navigation, point to point.

Boring!

And you can't argue with a map because it doesn't speak but you can with a sat nav.

Can't all teachers/ex-teachers read upside down just as easily as the right way?

I can read maps enough to plan journeys, and negotiate my way around unknown towns. Home visits to new areas, in the dark winter afternoons and early evenings could be difficult. I needed a torch, and sometimes a magnifying glass to see the tiny streets in the city A - Z. The arrival of satnavs made these visits so much easier, and I'm now a satnav addict. My husband is not, he loves maps with a passion. Like Galen, he loves the contours and the sights of historical interest shown on maps. If I'm navigating, he'll often ask what's that mountain/river etc and I'm rarely quick enough to locate and identify before we've sped past. He is convinced that when the satellites all drop out of the sky, or break down, non map readers will be unable to find their way to anywhere.

My sons made me buy a sat nav so that I would have warning about the location of speed cameras - I had an unfortunate experience four years ago. However, it now seems to be unable to locate a satellite, never mind a camera so it's back to the maps which I can memorise pretty well and I'm a bit more careful about my speed.

Maybe the maps need updating anno or you may need a chip in the thing changed - that happened to us.

anno , bez may well be right about your satnav maps needing updating. Mine stopped working in the middle of the trough of bowland, I'd not really been paying attention to where I was driving, just followed instructions whilst listening to radio 4 news. It took me a while to find a garage to buy a map, as foolishly I'd left home without one. When I took the satnav back to Curry's they explained I needed to attach it to my lap top and down load the new maps (free). As soon as I'd done this, it magically located a satellite and still reminds me where the speed camera's are.