Literally no sense of direction... at all

My daughter once decided to visit Stratford when driving from Cambridge to us in the North West. She rang us in a panic, Why am I on the M25??? At the time few people had heard of Stratford, east London, blame the sat-nav and a total lack of common sense!

I'm brilliant at getting lost. DH finds it hilarious. He stores up stories of places I've got lost. DDs are his accomplices and fill him in if I get us lot. His favourite is the Scout camp where I went to the Supermarket and got lost on the way back. You can see the campsite from the shop...

I learn landmarks. But I can't tell you where places are in relation to each other. I love Sat Nav.

@NotOnMute. Yes! That's me. I am always worried about coming across as scatty, rude and disorganised when I'm actually not any of those, I just can't do faces or directions!

I am exactly the same!!! Literally exactly! Following this with interest!

Hi OP, I am the same. I used to work in a job where I had to visit clients at home within say. 10 mile radius of me. I visited the same clients every week and relied on the satnav every time, panicked on the occasions it didn't work and once got really really lost when it didn't work.

How are you at parking? I am useless at it despite being a reasonable driver in other ways. Go to lengths to avoid parallel parking and if I have to do it it takes several attempts.

I tried to learn to ride a motorcycle once, found it completely impossible. I feel like it's all related somehow.

I'm like this too. If I'm walking somewhere that I can't rely on someone else (my partner is like a human sat nav, it fascinates me) I use the notes app in my phone to mark down some key points "turn left at x hotel" etc. I also Google street view places before visiting. Sense of direction doesn't seem to be something I can teach myself, so I've just learned ways to cope.

A previous poster mentioned being bad at recognizing faces - I struggle loads with this too. I will need to meet someone a dozen or so times before I could reliably recognise them out context.

I have this too. If I go to the toilet in a restaurant I usually can't find my way back to the table, it's actually embarrassing. When I was younger going to nightclubs I would have to stick close to a friend all night because if I went to the bar or toilet alone I'd never be able to find my way back and would just end up wandering around lost for ages trying to find my friends again.

Some people know directions and others don't. Google maps has been an absolute life saver.

I have a family member who has lived in the same small city for about 30 years, in about four different properties. There are quite a few places she goes to regularly where, in order to get there, she has to first drive to the first property she lived in. The journey only makes sense to her from that spot. It's batshit to me. Sometimes she'll be driving five miles out of her way in the wrong direction. Repeatedly. Odd.

I’m like this- lord knows how I’d have coped without a sat nav. Trial and error I suppose!

I do think that having access to GPS can make it worse, as you have no need to keep an eye out on any landmarks, you just follow the directions.

I thank god for my sat nav - without it my life would be so much more constrained due to my terrible sense of direction.

All journeys I know are a set of landmarks radiating out from my house - I have no clear idea of how they relate to each other. I suspect some level of dyspraxia. I wrote L and R on my hands when I was learning to drive. DH is extremely tolerant of my inability to know where anything is but I can’t help it!

Are any of you really bad with remembering faces? I am, and I know a few other people who are both prosopagnosic and have real trouble with directions / routes. I’ve wondered if there’s a related bit of brain that just doesn’t quite work.

I can read a map, walk on a bearing, spot landmarks etc. Just can’t work out where I am without some sort of clue other than how I got there.

I'm 41 educated and I think reasonably intelligent. So far have raised two reasonable DC and the year before last I got lost 3 times in car parks and had to find my way out. Once the year before that I got lost walking in a multi storey and thought the car had been stolen.

This weekend drove to a place we go regularly and got the wrong roundabout exit twice. We had been there the day before!

My brain simply doesn't understand directions. DP often tells the story that whilst stopped on a journey between Birmingham and London we had this conversation

"Which services are you at Shiny ?"

" What do you mean which services? The one on the motorway ?"

Long suffering sigh "Yes Shiny but which motorway?"

" oh right well its either the M42 , the M40 , I'm fairly sure its not the M25 and im definitely not on the North circular "

*DP quietly weeping in frustration "

I've commuted all over the UK regularly and I always get where I need to be. I just have no concept of actual direction and have banned DP from telling me its south or north without also telling me to navigate by passing retail parks

I'm like this - I could get lost on a straight road and it feels like a magic power when dh says just go down this road/path to get to where we started!

As an pp said, I've found using landmarks is vital, plus always having a map in the car. And not being too proud to ask for directions if needed.

Me too, hopeless!

Me too OP.

Luckily DH is a human sat nav.

....and I love it when my teenage dd is with me . She tells me where to go as she's fab with directions (takes after her dad 😅)

I am the same OP you are not alone. I panic too and imagine myself going round and round in circles for ever!
It's a standing joke with the kids -'are you going to get lost and cry mum?'
I once lost my car in the streets outside a local rugby ground. I must have circumnavigated it 3 times for nearly an hour before I found it.
I honestly could get lost in a paper bag.

Oh I am exactly the same. I get lost constantly when driving and walking. If there are road closures anywhere I really panic!

I went for a job interview once and when I was shown out the door afterwards I walked in completely the wrong direction. It was highly embarassing. I am nearly 50 now so I don't think it's going to improve!

Yes, I could get lost in my own house. I still couldn’t get the supermarket without a satnav despite living here for 5 years! DH drives when we go. If I walk along a street a different way sometimes it seems like it ‘back to front’ and thongs are in the wrong side!

As a toddler I had to direct my grandma home when the road was closed.

My sense of direction is quite good but I have purposefully got myself lost quite a few times. Obviously don’t try this when you’re in a rush to be somewhere, if it’s dark or you don’t have battery on your phone.

They’ve moved the dual carriageway near us, so I took a Sunday morning and just took a random exit, drove until I recognised a landmark, then turned around to look for more landmarks on that road. Went back on the dual carriageway and popped off at another junction to see where I was. On the way home sometimes, I will just randomly take a road and see where it leads me. It’s slow going but you build up a network of landmarks in your head. Also when you get diverted or lose sat nav, you aren’t too flustered as you’ve deliberately got yourself lost a number of other times before.

For car journeys look out for pubs.

If you have to stop and ask most people can direct you to a pub even if they do not know what street it is on.

If you get completely lost on your way to somewhere look for signs to a station or a hospital, everyone knows where there nearest station or hospital is, and in the old days, before mobiles, they both had pay phones and many railway stations have taxi ranks so you can pay a taxi and then follow it.

I'm pretty hopeless with this too. Apple Carplay froze up on me yesterday while I was on my way to a doctor's office I've only been to twice. I had to park the car and restart my iPhone just to calm my anxiety about it.

I got a Garmin satnav/GPS when they first came out and cost a fortune. It was life changing.

The more you use the gps the more you will rely on it. I too have a poor sense of direction, but the sat nav has most definitely made it worse. God knows how we managed before sat nav, but even I didnt get too lost that much! Maybe try to resist using it on shorter journeys, and as pp said, look for landmarks?