Always know where you are and always look good. And if you don’t know where you are, always look good.
– from the US special forces
Here is the next installment of this blog’s pdf survival guide, navigation:
I’ve chosen all the easy techniques that give you a broad idea of north and south, assuming that you don’t have GPS or a compass – looking at the sun or moon to find the directions, for instance.
I didn’t include a couple more complicated techniques. One is making a compass by magnetizing a needle. Another method is to use the shadow cast by a stick to track the path of the sun (or moon). The shadow method takes a while but gives you very accurate directions. I wanted to keep the techniques in my pdf really short and basic, even if they’re not 100% accurate, so I didn’t include these more complicated techniques.
As I was doing the stars, I downloaded the Night Sky app to try to familiarize myself with the constellations a little bit. I liked it very much. If you’re looking to get in touch with your primitive ancestry and commune directly with nature, this is one of the best apps out there.
2 replies on “Basic navigation”
Great little guide! Never knew about the watch method. Good quote to kick it off too.
But for me, the best app to get in touch with primitive ancestry is “Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous”. That or “Tips”.
Yeah, I think it’s technically supposed to be “always look cool” but either way it’s solid advice for navigation and for life generally.