To wonder how people found unfamiliar places before Sat Navs

[Eastie77Returns]

Obviously IABU as I’m in my mid 40s and didn’t use a Sat Nav when I started driving but I can’t remember how I managed!

Things that puzzle me…if you were driving to another city, clearly maps and signs on the motorway would be used. But once you arrived in the city and then had to get to a specific address (not a well known attraction that would be clearly sign posted), how would you find it if you didn’t have a detailed map like an A to Z of the city. Presumably people wouldn’t go to the expense of buying those kinds of maps every time they visited an unfamiliar city. And yes you can stop and ask people but how would that have worked in large cities where a passerby is very unlikely to know how to get to 23 Random Street which could be anywhere from close to the city centre to miles away in the suburbs.

I had too much coffee today and can’t sleep so I’m awake ruminating over the little things in life that puzzle me😂

I wasn’t great at map reading but AA Route Planner website helped me to go anywhere. I would print off the directions and it wasn’t easy or very safe referring to written directions whilst driving, but the alternative was to never go anywhere. My older brother could read a map and drive at the same time, which I was always in awe of. My DH can do the same.

Also on holidays with friends in Spain I hired a car and didn’t have anything to go by, just had to remember the route taken from the hotel.

Google maps can be hopeless, sometimes - it once tried to direct me into a Bunnings carpark instead of to the intersection I needed!

I only learned to drive a few years ago, but I navigate the same way I used to when I was using public transport: look up the route first. I don't have sat nav, I don't fancy being distracted while I'm driving. I also do the noting the street before the one you want thing.

My dad had a big A-Z of the whole country. He never seemed to get lost which I find remarkable now because I do even with a satnav!

Google maps and sat navs try to send any visiand deliveries through a dead end to get to my house... we give everyone directions, with the statement Google maps is wrong, but they don't believe us. People trust that thing too much.

It tried to tell me to take the same route walking as I would driving recently, which would mean thirty minutes walking vs ten via the pedestrian-only route. It was presumably having a brain fart, as it's back to normal now.

Directions would be given or asked fir

if visiting family, people gave detailed directions

people stopped and asked

a a map was drawn and sent

I'm nearly 60, the arguments in the car, the unwillingness of the male driver to ask for directions, is something you never forget.

There wasn't as much housing, small estates etc. Signposting was better. There was always people about, you could ask. But people did buy maps, as said, they were in the library and people talked to their neighbours, so you'd lend off each other. People my age used to use Pubs (on every corner) as landmarks. We used to do map drawing/reading and orienteering in school/guides/scouts.

I can’t drive but as a child I was a great map reader from A-Z. Remember the London one vividly.

Thread title caught my attention.

my username is due to a conversation with Dd when she rang up to say she couldn’t drive home from across the country as her phone had run out of data so she couldn’t google maps back!

i certainly remember planning routes via a road atlas and writing a list of directions out, m1 south, leave at junction 2, m42 west, leave at junction 6. And would follow those.

i don’t actually remember how we found random streets in towns before the internet though. Must have been a-z and asking people. I do remember going to uni in x city and my mum buying me an a-z. But I also remember travelling to places where i didn’t have an a-z. Must have stopped and asked.

And I still keep a road atlas in my car!

You’d ask people beforehand eg you’re going somewhere you’d ring and ask and write down rough directions and then when you got near you might have to ask people. I hate that say nav makes me so dumb about directions- if I go somewhere more than once I need sat nav instead of learning where something was!!

I was thankful to have a road atlas in the car a few months ago. V late night, long journey, A road via a major town closed due to overnight road works. Also an unfamiliar(ish) place where I didn't know if I drove towards x it would take me in the right direction. The sat nav was just wheel of doodling me back to the closed road and Google maps wanted me to go, late at night, on B roads through rural country. I was also on my own.

I pulled into a small town and had to map it. I was so glad dh, Mr trad, has always insisted we have old fashioned maps in the cars.

I'm 51 and used to do a lot of driving in my job in my 20s. My dd is amazed when she asks me how to get to X place as I know where all the major roads lead to.

But I do remember spending a lot of times in road atlas's, written down directions and asking people. I also remember knocking on someone's door, to ask if I could use their phone when I broke down too.

These days I panic if I have a long drive and forget my phone

If time to plan ahead and were visiting a friend, say, they'd photocopy relevant pages of their A to Z, highlight the route from the motorway / A road / similar that you'd be arriving on, and post it to you, so once your motorway / main roads map of the UK became useless, you had the right level of detail.

If not a lot of time to plan ahead, phone and get directions from the relevant main road on your UK road atlas.

If zero forward planning, you'd wind down your window (using a handle) and ask random strangers and hope for the best.

@ImustLearn2Cook my mum still has written instructions to get to my house - I've lived here 3.5yrs and she's 20mins drive away. She still has to look every time 😄

My dad just always seemed to know how to get somewhere. Even now he rarely uses satnav. He had a massive a-z in the car that he called Harry Map Book and he'd glance at it for a couple of seconds and know the entire route to exactly where we were going despite it being hours of driving. He's also a great driver which seems rare these days. I hate driving and am crap with directions so unfortunately seem to have taken after my mum.

Give your children a map book and let them navigate. We did that even after we had sat nav so they learnt to read maps.

I was going to to say that 😂

We bought my Dad a satnav and he hates it. He used it once and now it just sits in the box. He plans every long journey using his road atlas. He has a fantastic memory and can remember how to get to places after only going there once.

If I ever go anywhere he will write down the major towns and cities I will pass through.

I used to spend hours poring over ordnance survey maps as a child. Loved it and got quite good at measuring distances too.
I regularly feel a thrill of gratitude for google maps though. My car satnav is inclined to send me the scenic route, particularly in rural areas.

God I used to really struggle with this. One particular time, I drove 40 minutes to a friend. The trouble was the road she was on there were 4 roads with that name think like church road. I honestly couldn’t find her. I was going to give up and go home, but we managed to meet at a landmark and I followed her to her house. I still don’t have much sense of direction and rely heavily on sat nav if going somewhere unfamiliar. I just don’t pay enough attention.

My DM still does this. I moved and she came up for the first time. I had to point out local places to turn at.

So simple.

I'm 36 and I bought a uk road map to keep in car for emergencies.

I believe I only used it once.

Maps.

Many a time I had to pull into a service station to buy a local map.

AA Road Atlas. That had larger scale city maps in the back. London A-Z. If you were going somewhere specific, they gave you verbal directions on the landline which you wrote down.

When I started work, we had typewritten directions for customers visiting detailing the route, giving junction numbers etc. These would be sent by snail mail or faxed if it was last minute.

I started driving in the late nineties. I remember the AA auto route. I would print the directions off that I needed.

Before thst I'm guessing actual maps? Roads weren't as complicated or busy though.