How Do You "Do" Directions??

[erin-x]

I've got an interview at a new school tomorrow and I had no idea where it was. After asking a few people and getting a list of turn left here, turn right here, take the third exit at this roundabout, blah, blah, blah... I decided to go on google maps and go along the streetview. My directions now consist of turn left at the big conifers, turn right at the house with the red garage door etc etc... I need visual clues as to where I am or else i'm completely stumped! Anyone else like this?? I can't be the only one surely! Haha :)

[sunny-dave]

Yeah - and goggle street view is a year or two out of date - caught me out the other day - some b*gger had built a new supermarket & changed all the road junctions

[erin-x]

Oh no! I would have been completely lost! haha

[sherrardk]

I went for a teaching interview in Halifax and asked someone in a car park for directions to the school - the woman went bonkers at me. Turns out she had applied for the job too but hadn't got an interview!

[erin-x]

Oh god! I hope she didn't send you the wrong way lol ;)

[Euphemia]

Good luck for the interview, Erin

[erin-x]

Thanks Euphemia :) Hopefully someone will want me! lol

[welshlibranr]

Yes, good luck!........don't worry you'll find your way there!...........

[ladyalex]

I am so relieved reading this post to find others who are rubbish at directions. I am totally hopeless. I can go to places several tens of times and still not be able to remember how to get there. All street corners look much the same to me and I cannot remember any of them visually.
Fortunately I can read maps pretty well and am quite good at remembering street names, but I live in terror of breaking down somewhere in the countryside as, other than saying I am on the road between X and Y, I could not possibly tell anyone where I was.
Thank goodness for SatNav. It has changed my life.
I'm sure it's inherited as my Dad was and my sister is similarly afflicted.

[ladyalex]

My advice, by the way is to do the 'Get Directions ' thing from googlemaps , print it out and take it with you .

[Maydup]

I'm OK with directions, but I'm at my best when I can visualise it. So google maps is a real reassurance to me too.

I understand that it might have changed but it won't all be different and there will be conifers, red doors, Petrol Station, little square of greenery by the bus stop etc! I love it, especially when I get there and feel that everything is just a little bit familiar.

[atalanta]

Rather a long time ago, some psychological experiments were done to see how people gave or understood directions.
It turned out there was a male-female split. Women prefer mental pictures, such as " turn right at the gasworks, then go on until you see the swimming pool, turn right between the two factories, go on until you see the Shoulder of Mutton pub".
men prefer mathematics - "go over seven sets of lights and turn right at the fork, straight through three roundabouts then third on the left"
This was reported in the "new Scientist" magazine

[Mosaic]

I look at maps (online - the OS version on Bing) and also at Streetview.....because I am a little obsessive about architecture, it will tend to be something like "when the 1930s suburbs give way to Victorian garden.-fronted terraces, look for the old co-op where the road forks, then take the right-hand fork"
Works for me.

[emmie]

quite well, it was the o/h who was bad at finding places.