Being in a new environment is overwhelming enough without adding the pressure of having to navigate the space yourself. This is especially true if you’re someone who isn’t gifted when it comes to a sense of direction. Funnily enough, one of the easiest ways to navigate a new city is by getting lost; you’ll learn from your mistakes and won’t find yourself repeating the same wrong turnings. Despite this, if you haven’t got long to spend in a city, the last thing you want to do is waste hours of your time being lost. To that avail, detailed below are some of the top tips for navigating a new city.
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Make Use of the Transport Options
First things first, making use of the transport options is one of the best ways to acquaint yourself with your surroundings. You might start out with a taxi service, as this will involve someone taking you to exactly where you need to be. Just make sure you’re looking out the window and taking mental notes of where you’re going so you’ll be able to do it on your own next time.
After using a taxi service, you can then progress to public transport routes. These won’t be customized to you, meaning you’ll have to use a little more initiative and your sense of direction.
Take it One Neighborhood at a Time
If you’re looking at a city as a whole entity, you’ll never be able to navigate it. Therefore, you can make your life easier by using the neighborhoods to separate the city into manageable chunks. If you’re only in the city for a short while, do your research on each neighborhood before you arrive. This will allow you to prioritize which neighborhoods are most important to you, so you can make sure they’re placed in your itinerary. You might comprise a route to make the whole navigation process a lot more streamlined.
Use Landmarks
In a city, you’re not likely to be short of landmarks to help you pinpoint where you are. If you’re not very good with directions, the location of landmarks might be how you determine which way you need to go. If you can make your way to where you need to be from at least one landmark, you’ll never find yourself lost again. Similarly, it makes the location easier to find for other people that might not be familiar with the area. Even Google Maps can struggle with finding some places, so having a landmark as an indication of where you are is always smart.
Get a Map
In a generation of Google Maps, the idea of a physical map may seem like a foreign concept. Despite this, Google Maps doesn’t allow you to familiarize yourself with an area as well as a physical map does. Instead of telling you directly where you need to go, a map gives you a comprehensive view of the entire city. Therefore, it enables you to see where you are in relation to what’s around you. This also helps you in your mission to use landmarks to navigate where you are and where you need to be.
Study Said Map
It’s all well and good having a map, but this doesn’t mean you can just fold it up and put it away, never to be seen again. Once you’ve got your map, you need to make a conscious effort to study it to understand how the map represents real life. It can be really tricky to compare a map to reality, which is why it’s important to take the time to study it.
