Missing: A Sense of Direction

In my past life in America, I prided myself on being able to find anything anywhere, with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back. Nowadays I can't even find the grocery store without getting lost.  :-\

I blame the fact I am so far from my usual magnetic North. I'm reading posts and seeing a lot of people suffer the same phenomenon. I've been here six years and I have yet to find it back. Anyone ever get theirs back eventually?

I do get twisted around sometimes, but generally I have a pretty good sense of direction.  I think what is difficult to adjust to is the fact that (at least in London and surrounding areas) there's little rhyme or reason to the streets.  We Americans are used to the streets being gridlike and it just doesn't work that way here! 

Nearing year six and I still don't have a sense of direction.  *sigh*

I have always gotten lost.  I have mild dyslexia so my sense of direction is nil. 

I'm finding this difficult, too. 

I'm ok in London where I spent most of my time on foot or on buses (when I was taking the tube when I first moved over, I was totally lost!)- but now that we're in the country, I have great difficulties getting my bearings. I have a feeling things will get better once I learn to drive over here- although, I was never a really adventurous soul when it came to getting out and about on my own if it meant going to a place I wasn't very familiar with direction-wise. 

This may sound like a bit of a cliche', but I'm also just plain crappy at reading maps here. To be honest, it has caused my husband and I to have some unpleasant episodes in the car  :-\  It is getting easier- but my nerves are at an all-time high when I'm faced with all the stupid roundabouts and junctions. Could be why I'm so nervous about driving a car myself! Everything is still a bit topsy turvy in this dept hehe

I know what you mean about being without your usual directional focus, Lisa- at home in NY I use the Hudson River as my guide and just used to think of where I was in relation to the river- good old north-south! Isn't so easy with the Thames hehe Meandering waterway that it is!

I've been in York for about 4 years and I still get confused about where things are and have to stop and think it through. It's definitely not second nature yet.

I don't have a good sense of direction anyway but I agree with elle that the grid system is the way to go. Having lives in the Philly area my entire life before here, it was a breeze figuring out logically where things would be.

I'm still trying to grasp the concept of streets changing names like 3 times before they end. What's the deal with that??? It certainly doesn't help things.  :-\

I actually have a pretty good sense of direction but do find the maps and roundabouts here a bit stressful. The DF is an outstanding map reader (he's a field scientist who uses maps every single day!). However, we've had to drive many places where I have had to navigate and as jennydee mentioned, it has led to some rather unfortunate scenes!  I believe he finally realized that yelling at me about how to read a map while on the roundabout was not going to work when I told him to 'stick the map in a place where the sun don't shine and find your own way home!' 

What I find utterly mind boggling is that if you are driving yourself, you can't just follow an A road 'north' or 'south'. For example, I had to drive to Wells next the Sea in Norfolk. I had to pull over all the time as the roundabouts didn't always tell me the A road name, they just had the next village or town! In the States you'd get something like 'A303 north Kings Lynne'. Here you just get A303 Kings Lynne.

I also have a hard time not honking!!  Coming from the hell that is the Baltimore Washington DC commuter belt, I am well used to my horn and here, if I'm not mistaken, it's practically illegal to use!

I'm good with knowing where things are and how to get there but I couldn't tell you if it was north, south, east or west if my life depended on it. That's what bothers me. Phoenix has the grid system and I was always good at giving directions by telling people to go south to such and such or turn west at 47th etc etc. But here I haven't the foggiest.

Now I don't rely on direction, I rely on street names and landmarks and it works for me. I know my way around Leeds pretty dang well (better than some people who have lived here for years) but outside of Leeds I'm a little lost puppy.

I am the same as Ashley with landmarks and otherwise tend to find myself out of being lost fairly easily.  Though I do go insane in a few places.... the old parts of NYC, downtown ATL (no grids to speak of and 20 bazillion peachtree this and peachtree that), the dang Dupont Circle roundabout in Washington, DC always throws me for a loop esp. when they reroute you.  I find that I do better when given a town name than N, S, E, W because I really don't have a clue where they are and plus on beltways I find that you can very easily head off in the wrong direction. 285 here in ATL is like that...one time it's NS then EW and many first time visitors will tell you they got on it and finally drove the entire way around.

Yeah, I have to agree the grid system is a sure bonus. (Anyone now living in Milton Keynes experience this loss of directional sense?) And also agree that roundabouts are great for making 180-degree turns!

It gets frustrating coming from an ability to find things with my eyes close to now being almost an imbecile. My husband is very patient considering he's got a phenominal sense of direction...uncanny, actually.

I had to think about this one,, at first I thought 'no', have always had an excellent sense of direction. But then remembered when I first moved here, and was always feeling turned around, by the twisty roads, and streets in Bournemouth. So, I think perhaps I have regained it now that I have gotten more familiar with things,, but at first,, yep, was clueless.

I had a few stumbles in my map-reading abilities at first, and thought I'd lost my sense of direction.  I'm still not great at reading maps (although a lot better than I was two years ago LOL).  However, once I started driving and had some experience of British roads, I found that my basic sense of direction was unchanged.  I can find my way back from the inevitable mistakes of missed exits, faulty directions and completely inadequate British signage, extremely fast and without looking at a map in most cases.

I do remember one awful moment of hubris...on my second day here my partner was driving us from Harrow to Liverpool, and I offered to help her avoid the Birmingham M6 nightmare with my trusty seat-of-the-pants navigation.  I did this sort of thing all the time in the States and never had a problem.  Well, do I even have to say that I got her lost in Birmingham for two hours?  Was my face red!  After that I decided to shut up and pay attention rather than arrogantly assume I knew everything! 

Emily

Phoenix has the grid system and I was always good at giving directions by telling people to go south to such and such or turn west at 47th etc etc. But here I haven't the foggiest.

Somewhat agreed.  Having lived all my life in Phoenix, it was difficult to even realize that not every city was specifically built on a grid system.  I've only spent 6 months in Shrewsbury but have figured out (sometimes better than Sean) whereabouts things are and how to get there. 

At first, I tried basing everything on compass directions, but quickly figured out that wasn't going to be as effective as just actually learning where things were, because very few things in his town (and others i've visited) are actually in one given direction.  I bought a town and county map and studied that for a bit.  That, along with just getting out by myself and walking around, helped immensely.  As far as country-wide geography is concerned...     I only have a VERY rough estimate of the counties and their relation to Shropshire.   I do feel confident getting around town though.

I figure after dealing with both Washington, DC & Boston, and doing okay with both those towns, I should be okay with London.  I'll just do the same thing - study the map, get lost a few times & then figure it all out!  Luckily (in some ways) I won't have a car so getting lost driving is not an option!

Unfortunately, I have been known to get lost in round rooms...so my sense of direction anywhere in the world is pretty nil.