Discussion: Maphead

I'm reading it now, too. Mostly enjoying it, until I got to the part where he makes fun of people who orient road maps to the direction of travel. He thinks they should always stay north, and true map heads can relate it to the real world internally

Why does he think there's something special about north? We aren't birds who can see the magnetic field. North=up is a social convention that is useful when it's useful and inconvenient when it's not useful.

I haven't gotten to that point yet, Mary. I'm with you there.

I know a woman who's not an orienteer (in the woods or parks) who reads road maps by orienting them to direction of travel, not north. I told her, "That's orienteering."

@bct-- exactly.

Ha! This has always been a curious difference between me and arthurd! She orients the map to the direction of travel. I hold the map so it's right side up, and rotate it in my head. I don't even orient the map to the terrain when I'm orienteering.... I'm not sure why. I just don't need to.

Of course, she's a much better orienteerer than I am.... :)

Will definitely have to look for this book!

When orienteering, I of course orient the map to the terrain -- I didn't realize there was any other way until I saw Abizelth's post above. :)

But in my car, I've chosen to have my GPS always have north to the top -- I guess because I like to have some sense of what direction I'm going, especially when I'm driving in unfamiliar territory. I find it less important when driving to do the fine navigation where having the map oriented to the terrain would be helpful, and more important to have a clue as to which way I'm actually traveling.

We have our car GPS oriented to direction of travel (so I know when to turn left or right as the case may be). So, the same way I orienteer. :-) (Though sometimes I wish it would show a North arrow...)

I like the GPS oriented north. If I am traveling with my son, he is very helpful and switches it to direction of travel, which I find a bit unsettling. It seems to me it is such a completely different activity from orienteering.

Definitely direction-of-travel for both maps and GPS. That was one annoying thing about using OpenStreetMaps on E's iPad for navigating in Bosnia - I could turn the iPad to match the direction of travel, but then if I tilted it all in order to get a better viewing angle, it would auto-rotate the map and put north back at the top.

Back to Maphead ... I bought it when I first saw it, and tore through it. Really enjoyed it (though I agree with the map orientation annoyance of maprunner!). I was a bit annoyed he never mentioned orienteering. Talk about your map geeky sport! Geocaching has nothing on it. Perhaps someone should send Mr. Jennings a note with COC's schedule ...

I orienteered for over 2 years before it was suggested to me to rotate the map in the direction of travel. Since I made the switch, I'm afraid I haven't noticed any real difference. I still don't rotate the maps for ski-o because the map is pinned in place.

Direction of travel, always. I went to a zoo with my family once and my Dad (who doesn't orienteer) wanted to know why I was holding the zoo map upside down...

The road atlas or map gets oriented too. I don't like or use a GPS in the car.

I like Peggy's suggestion. :-) I suspect if he tried orienteering he'd get a big kick out of it. I see myself in things he says about how he interacts with the world of maps.

Agree with direction of travel approach. Fpb: ski O map holders are pretty helpful. Boat chart use is the same: direction of travel tho many sailors go page/N up. Our GPS/chart plotter is set for DOT. Off shore, it makes little difference, the chart is a blank white paper depicting blue ocean. Not much to consult. There is the north star for true north, local apparent noon is pretty much true south, I believe - other pointers, too.

Southern hemisphere folks don't think they live in Earth's basement. Northern 'VIPs' made the early maps & charts....