Help for navigationally challenged

@ Adam G

RE: the compass on the Suunto watches. You need to calibrare it occasionally and hold the faceplate horizonal when reading it. It should be more accurate than the little tiny compasses.  Mine has helped me several times find my way back to the campsite after walking around snow-covered lakes taking photographs right before and after sunset.

Following up on this, I have to the realization that I probably have a (rare?) condition called Developmental Topographic Disorientation. It is a neurological defect in which people struggle to form mental maps of places and routinely get lost even in very familiar places like their home or work. It can be really bad and debilitating for some people. Sometimes people cannot tell left from right. For example, they may come to a corner and given instructions like “turn left.” Their mental maps often turn 90 or 180 degrees especially if they deviate from a straight line at all. If they think about it, they know which way to turn, but intuitively, sometimes they turn right because that conceptually seems correct in their mental maps.

Obviously, this community does a lot more complicated navigation than most people who are just driving around relying on GPS. Has anyone struggled with this and done anything to improve it?

I tried orienteering. I found the courses too fast and frustrating for even the beginner ones and the community not particularly welcoming. Bleh.