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😂

Yep - massive map book. Holidays always felt real when I was a child when my parents would sit down at the kitchen table the night before and plot the route on the massive road map book.

I uae google maps and directions but I stuggle to.oritentst emyslef and hate how dependent it makes me feel. I much prefer plotting the route myself on a printed map. First thing I do when we arrive at a unfamilar city is get a free printed street map so I can get an idea of the layout of the city.

I used to drive around London in the early 90s with the A to Z on the passenger seat next to me. The only time this went badly wrong was when i had to do an emergency stop, the map flew off the seat and somehow ended up underneath it. I was driving around the Elephant and Castle at the time so couldn't instantly retrieve it.

Yes, I did the post-it thing on the steering wheel thing too!
After I’d been on AA route finder.

I used to travel all over the UK for work in the 1990s.

I had A-Z books of many, many counties, purchased from motorway service stations everywhere.

As you say it's usually the "final mile" that's hardest. I'd have post it notes stuck in my dash board with instructions:
M46 to J39
A636 towards Town C
4 miles
A roundabout, right to Biace

Posted too soon..

The details on my post it's would get vaguer as I got closer to where I was going.

Sometimes I'd have a local contact who'd be able to say "ah, there's a Jet station on the left turn" or something, but not often.

Writing it all down and then posting it to someone is the most pre-internet thing ever! Love it!

Used to write bullet point directions for myself.

A map printed by the Ordinance Survey and then perhaps going in to a local shop and asking and writing those directions down.
Alternatively, get myself somewhat lost and have to 'find' my way to the destination.

I had a UK Road Atlas which I would study and try to memorise before any unfamiliar journey. I'd have it with me on the passenger seat but obviously you couldn't do more than glance whilst driving. Often I'd also have a local town map too and sometimes some handwritten directions. I actually found the handwritten directions the most useful because they would include landmarks like "you will see the Red Cow pub on the right hand side, then get in lane to turn right at the next traffic lights". If you got stuck you'd have to pull over and check the map etc. Double back if you'd gone too far ...

I am pretty hopeless with directions, always have been despite driving for over 30 years. Even now I dread driving somewhere unfamiliar. Sat nav is very useful but sometimes I still get flummoxed because my brain can't translate the instructions to what I'm seeing on the road ahead. It doesn't refer to any landmarks!

I used to drive a lot for work, but rarely now and my domestic driving is mainly around the local area. I've got to drive to Oxford tomorrow and I'm already anxious about it, even though I'll have the sat nav!

Big road atlas, A-Z and OS maps, written directions, stopping to ask for directions, following road signs.

Road atlases have maps of major cities. You could ask the AA to send you a detailed route. I remember reading out page after page to my dad as we drove north to Blackpool. What I remember most was taking my late mother on holiday on my own. It was always easy to drive into a town, park and see the sights. Getting out of the town in the right direction was always a problem.

I still use maps, on line routes and satnavs take you a way that's not necessarily the best for you, they're designed to take you away from more convenient routes. I keep a couple of old OS maps in the car too, great for keeping away from the tourists and their satnavs!
Before online things people were grown up enough to manage without nannying, we very rarely got lost!

I used to tape instructions (written in thick black pen) to the dashboard.

I had a holiday in China -our driver couldn’t read a map (we wanted to get out of the city)- on top of that country folk weren’t well travelled so asking directions was fun.
Show him a map and he looked blank.
So that is how the young people today will be - no idea where anything is -it’s a bit scary as satellites I’m sure can be sabotaged, the power does go off sometimes.

I still have an A to Z map in the boot☺️
I have to drivea lot in my role a d occasionally the WiFi goes....love a map!

Haven't got a satnav. If a long journey, we plan with a map, (OS and road atlas) and with AA route planner. Google street view is useful to look at to see features - e.g. the third turning on the right past the church, or the house with the big trees in the garden. I've got a pretty good mermory for that sort of thing. My brother taught me to map read (OS maps) and navigate way back in the 50s and it's a skill I.ve used ever since.

I used to look at maps, I'd know what was the biggest town to head towards using road signs, then swap to village road signs as I got closer.
In big towns looking for a street, I used to look on the map and write down the streets and Left or Right, and also the name of the rd ahead to watch for so I could anticipate my turn off coming up.
I worked really well for me, I rarely got lost and drove all over the place.

What everyone else said. It wasn’t that difficult, honestly. People tended to send you detailed directions if you were making a road trip to them (I remember with great fondness a trip a good friend and I took from Oxford to visit her parents in the vac, before sat nav, mobiles etc — I navigated off her mum’s written directions (which didn’t always work, as she assumed a four while drive and my friend’s little sardine can car couldn’t make it up a very steep minor road in the Peak District, so we had to unpack the boot and while I walked up with the bags, she got the car up the incline!) )

One friend, who lived among a maze of tiny side roads in a rural area where there weren’t many other houses to ask directions at (and she was new to the area, so her name wouldn’t have rung any bells), had a big birthday party, and earlier that day, had gone out and tied party balloons to trees to guide people at junctions. And her written directions on the invitations said things like ‘at the ruined creamery, turn right. Keep going until the Christmas tree plantation, then turn left.’

When I moved to Sydney in 2007 google maps didn’t exist, or I didn’t have a smartphone, either way, I used to write out directions before I left home but I was always getting lost! It was so stressful. I found in the U.K., because I grew up there I had a general idea of direction (like, I knew Leeds was north of me, Bristol west, Cambridge east etc) whereas in Sydney there would be signs to “Ultimo” or “Wooloomooloo” and I’d just be like “wtf” and have no clue whether that was near where I needed to go.
At least in London if I was headed to Clapham, I knew Balham was in a similar area so I could follow signs.

i used to drive to Bristol for university and didn’t like motorway driving as I had a tiny car so I would basically would follow one sign then another, until I picked up the motorway for the last bit! I was an ace map reader though - you would see us all in London, standing on the street with our little books.

When I moved to London I liked to take the bus as it gave me a better idea of how the areas fitted together and I soon got to know loads of London as I was sent to courts all over the place.

If you can use Google street view on your phone, you might as well get Google maps app as well and use it as Sat nav.

Or do you prefer to use maps to keep up your skill? (And I agree it’s definitely a skill).

Most of the books of road and motorway maps included a section of city plans for the major cities, which I remember using a lot.

Also the OS maps include a lot details that can help you pinpoint your position if you know how to read them, they marked the telephone boxes and post offices for example, also churches with towers or steeples. Addresses themselves often gave you clues too, Glebe House or Waterworks Cottages for instance. I don't recall us getting lost very often.

It was driving to new places when my boyfriend at the time got a new job in our early 20s that made me realise I needed glasses - I couldn’t read the road signs until I was really close to them 😁
My first thought when I got my glasses was “wow I should NOT have been driving”

They got directions, and/or used maps.
I still like to work out a route on a map, in case the SatNav gets it wrong, as it has done more than once. But I like to know where we’re going anyway.

My dh used to have a fantastic sense of direction - he could visit a city for a few hours and go back 10 years later, and still find his way about. But I notice that since he’s been relying on satnav for years now, his ability has really waned.

My sense of direction OTOH was always rubbish, which is one reason I like maps - and I’m an A* map reader!

I read somewhere that men’s sense of direction is often better than women’s, because they have bigger deposits of iron in the nasal area, and the earth is a magnet. Hence ‘following your nose’. Makes sense, when you remember that men’s iron levels are typically higher than women’s.

Where I live now there are few street signs in the town -I think the council are t bothering to replace them. New estates on the outskirts have them.

I remember my sister phoning my mum's house phone once, nearly in tears, as even with an A-Z she was getting lost in London. Luckily it was an area both Mum and I were familiar with, so we gave her instructions based on what buildings she could see.

And back in the very olden days, pre-mobile phones, I sometimes had to find a phone box to phone for directions when lost, which added an extra layer of lost-ness to the proceedings.