The Best American Travel Writing 2011

by Sloane Crosley

  Sense of direction in animals is both (a) easier to study than it is in humans, and (b) really, crazy impressive, comparatively. Case in point: one species of snail, when taken from its home in a cloth bag, is able to orient itself and find its way back for up to forty miles. Last week, I went to a new CVS approximately three miles from my house. I got lost on the way home.

  Migratory birds are often noted as having the most impressive animal sense of direction, which makes sense. About 80 percent of North American birds migrate, some over oceans and across continents. One bird, called the red knot, travels eighteen thousand miles round trip each year from the tip of South America to the Arctic and back again.

  For years, theories have been thrown around about sense of direction in migratory birds. The birds use landmarks, some people said, or they depend upon an amazing sense of smell. They use the stars, others suggested. It turns out they use an internal, magnetic compass, which is, in a sense, recalibrated every night based on the direction of the sun as it sets. In 2004 scientists tracked migratory songbirds—gray-cheeked thrushes—catching them just before their departure and placing them in an artificial magnetic field. When they were released, the birds flew through the night on the wrong path, and then stopped and corrected themselves by 90 degrees, back toward their desired destination, as soon as the sun rose.

  At least we understand the need for the birds' sense of direction. They migrate. Fair enough. Some animal behavior related to directional sense, though, remains a mystery. Last year, after looking at photo after photo of cattle fields, a team of German and Czech researchers discovered that cows tend to align their bodies facing either directly north or directly south, regardless of where they are in the world. Why are they lined up this way? How do they know to do it? Although it's assumed that the positioning has to do with the magnetic fields of the earth, no one seems to be clear on the specifics. These invisible magnetic lines might be strong enough for the cows to sense them, but why is that beneficial to the animals? No one knows.

  The magnetic field is oddly prevalent in all kinds of animal orientation. Termites line up along its cardinal axes—either north to south or east to west. If the nest is turned, they will reorient themselves to these directions. If a strong magnet is placed above the nest, it throws them off. Yellow eels also use the magnetic field. Honeybees do too. And salmon.

  Homing pigeons are more of a mystery. It was long thought that they, too, relied solely upon the magnetic field to find their way. In studies that disrupt the field, the pigeons' path was thrown off. But, in 2004, after tracking pigeons with GPS satellites for ten years, researchers at Oxford University announced their—let's be honest, ludicrous—findings: rather than using the sun for directional bearings, it turns out that the pigeons use roads they've traveled in the past as a guide, turning at junctions and, sometimes, even going around traffic circles. Then, three years after this study, different scientists found that iron-containing structures within the birds' beaks apparently also aid in their sense of direction. They might even have the ability to use "atmospheric odors." Long story short: when it's time to flee, those pigeons are going to be safe in some faraway bunker long before I am. Apparently so will snails and termites.

  "Okay," my dad says as we start walking. "The lake is over there, and according to the map, we're supposed to curve around to the left of it."

  I raise the compass on the string around my neck. "Should we be using this?" I ask.

  "It's up to you," he says. I look at the map and realize that we should be able to use the landmarks—the lake, the marked trails—instead. (Read: we should be able to cheat.) This is helpful, because neither of us, we agree, understands how to use the compass in relation to finding our way around this park.

  Like calculating square footage or break dancing, using a compass is something I've repeatedly tried and failed at. I get the basic concept, but not the next steps: The needle is pointing NW, so...? Other people apparently love these things, though. There's a surprisingly big market, it turns out, for compass-related gifts. One can purchase compass tie tacks, compass cufflinks, compass necklaces, pocket compasses. I adore the idea of a businessman standing in the woods, holding up his French-cuffed sleeve to see if he should head deeper into the trees or turn back. Two different people have given me compasses for my car. The thought is there, but they're practically worthless. I can't picture my destination on a map anyway, so I don't know which way I'm supposed to be going, even if I can determine north, south, east, or west.

  My dad and I do not use the compass once the whole day.

  Whether it's animals homing in on magnetic fields, or the orienteerers using their hand-held compasses, most scientists agree that magnetics plays a large part in one's sense of direction. In the late seventies, an experiment was done that proved magnetic fields contributed in some way to the "internal compass" of humans as well. Scientists loaded up a bus and blindfolded the passengers and announced that they were placing magnetic bars on everyone's heads, although in reality half were magnetic and half were brass. The bus drove around for a while, then the scientists asked everyone to identify their current compass direction. Overwhelmingly, those wearing magnets were less capable than the control (brass) group.

  Magnetics plays a role, but it's not all magnetics. It's not all anything, in fact. Mysteries breed myth, and sense of direction is a big enough mystery that all the crazies come out with their suggestions. Poor sense of direction stems from left-handedness, some say. Oh, it's tied to dyslexia, others claim. People with a poor sense of direction are simply inattentive. Or, They're stupid. Some say, Sense of direction is connected to geometry. Can't understand angles? You won't have any directional abilities. Others argue, People with no sense of direction are probably mildly dyspraxic (a disorder related to difficulty carrying out a plan, physical or otherwise). Still others say that it stems from not spending enough time outside as a kid. Or that those involved in sports at a young age develop a better spatial ability and, therefore, a better sense of direction.

  Then there is, of course, the gender theory.

  "Men have a better sense of direction because of the whole 'hunter-gatherer' thing, I think," my uncle tells me when I bring it up. "We were supposed to go out and collect food and roam away from the cave to do it, whereas women were safest staying in one place, taking care of the babies."

  This is a surprisingly popular theory, at least among people I know, which may say something about the people I know. It's a hot topic among scientists as well, although it rings distinctly true or false depending on whom you ask. While there are definite gender differences in the way people approach finding their way, no one seems to agree on whether the approaches taken by men or by women are more effective.

  Men are more likely to use "survey strategies"—using north, south, east, and west descriptors—than women. Women are more likely than men to use route strategies, such as landmarks, or stating the approximate time it takes to travel between two locations. Neither strategy is proven to be markedly more effective than the other.

  Women do, however, consistently rate their sense of direction as worse than men. We also know that among children, boys do have better mental rotation skills. In one study, girls and boys were each given a map and asked to "mentally" make their way across town without rotating it. Then they were asked to state whether they would be turning left or right at particular intersections. The boys, unfortunately, rocked this experiment compared to the girls. Some attribute higher testosterone levels during fetal development, suspecting that they may aid in developing the part of the brain responsible for mental rotation, but no one can really say how much this has to do with factors more associated with "nurture" than "nature."

  Some research does suggest that this spatial ability carries over into adulthood, and other researchers adamantly dispute it. One study, conducted by what I'm guessing was a pretty unpopular researcher, suggests not only that women have a worse sense of direction than men, but t
hat gay men have a worse sense than straight men. The study showed gay men, straight women, and lesbians navigating with the same weaknesses, which included a lack of ability to rely on local landmarks, increased time needed to analyze spatial information, and poor routing in general.

  What researchers do agree on is markers: If I ask the average man how to get to the Thai restaurant near my house, he'd tell me to go eight hundred yards and then turn left, then wind down the road for another half of a mile. The average woman would tell me to turn left at the yellow house, and then go down until I see the coffee shop. When I see it, I'll know the restaurant is just a few minutes farther. In explaining a route, men will more often cite distances and cardinal directions like "north" or "west." Usually, women cite landmarks.

  After a half hour or so of wandering and inserting our e-card at the first few checkpoints, my father and I round a corner and find ourselves walking alongside a father-son team in matching red wind-breakers.

  "It is your first time?" the father asks in a thick, charming eastern European accent.

  "Can you tell?" my dad replies, smiling.

  "It is for him as well," the man says, pointing to his little boy, who looks to be about nine.

  As they walk ahead, I tell my father to stop watching them. The brochure clearly declares among the Golden Rules of Orienteering: "Do not follow other orienteerers!"

  While stalking other orienteerers is considered cheating, it's a strategy I have mastered when it comes to finding my way outside of the woods. In addition to following others, I am big on repetition. The first few months of a new job has me whispering "Left, left, right" every time I exit the elevator and try to find my office. I also count the rows whenever I walk up the ramp of a dark movie theater toward the restroom: "one, two, three, four, and left." I repeat it the whole time I'm gone so that I can find my seat again—this after once accidentally sitting down next to a stranger during a particularly suspenseful scene of the film Coyote Ugly.

  In using these strategies, I'm not trying to increase my actual abilities the way I am by orienteering. Instead, I'm simply trying to get where I need to be in whatever way I can—a common desire for those of us who tend to get lost at every turn. Other coping mechanisms I've heard: I print directions to and from any new destination and keep them in a binder in my trunk. Or, I leave myself voicemail messages with landmarks. And I don't drive or—the worst—I never go anywhere alone.

  In my efforts to improve my directional ability, I came across a book called Never Get Lost Again. It's small, and the cover features a drawing of a blonde woman in cargo capri pants standing on a compass and holding a map. A friend saw me reading it and said, "She's not even looking at the map!" This should have been a red flag. The book provides absolutely no useful information. The author's suggestions include such gems as "Get clear, specific directions," "Learn to read a map," and "Ask for directions." Very helpful, indeed. Oh, if only I'd known to get directions all these years.

  What is helpful, then, for improving non-GPS-aided sense of direction? Very, very little, it seems. The sun always seemed like a safe fallback, at least in terms of east and west. However, in fact, the sun doesn't rise and set exactly due east or due west. There's some seasonal variation, I learn, which is really just one more factor working against me.

  The orienteering techniques were slightly more useful, though in more of an "I'm-lost-in-the-woods!" kind of way than a "How-do-I-get-to-Chipotle?" kind of way, which is closer to what I really need. One strategy I was particularly impressed with is called the "Shadow-Tip Method." You start by finding a long stick and planting it in a relatively clear spot of level ground where you can see the shadow. With a rock you mark the spot on the ground where the shadow stops. The direction of the shadow is west "everywhere on earth," several sources explain. Then you wait fifteen minutes, mark the shadow's new spot on the ground, and draw a straight line in the dirt from the first to the second. This marks the east-west line. You go from there.

  This makes absolutely no sense. How can it always be west? you ask. It turns out, the shadow will move in the exact opposite direction as the sun, and the sun always moves west. So, the next time I'm lost in the woods with access to a watch and a piece of tree, and a better memory than I currently possess, I'm set.

  Of eight orienteering courses, which increase in difficulty, we've chosen to do course number 1, which winds only along park trails. It is, I suspect, the course most often utilized by elementary school children. Remarkably, my dad and I get really lost only once, between flags seven and eight, near the end.

  As we've hiked I've tried to note about how long it takes us to walk to each flag, as compared to the distance shown on the map. The shorter distances end up being around ten minutes, and the longer ones are fifteen or twenty. The rain has picked up and we've both commented several times how much we're looking forward to lunch when I realize we've been walking for quite a long time on one of the shorter jaunts. As I stop and pull out the map, I ask, "Did you see which way that guy and his son went?"

  "Isn't that against the rules?" my dad asks, stomping to get some mud off of his sneaker.

  The orienteering map is one of the most intricate, least decipherable pieces of paper I've ever seen. The legend shows thirty-four different symbols and their corresponding objects or terrains, all included in an 8 ½ × 11 sheet. One can find anything from the symbol for "stony ground" or "impassable cliff" to "knoll/small knoll/dot knoll." Black boxes show buildings. A building up on our right seems to correspond with one of the boxes above the wide circle we've been hiking. I point this out and suggest that as we're halfway around the circle already, we should just keep walking and complete it, then go from there. My father thinks it's a different black box. In the end, neither of us is right, and it takes us another half hour to find the next flag.

  The Orienteering brochure wants me to know that "getting lost should not be scary for many reasons" and that "wandering around will only worsen the degree of 'lost' that you are in." This information makes sense in theory, but in practice, who hasn't been absolutely sure they'd find their way after just one more turn or another few miles?

  People getting lost is big business. In addition to GPSs made specifically for cars, we can now add the technology to our cell phones and even our stopwatches when we run. And outside of this technology, there are companies like Corbin Design, a firm based in Michigan focused on providing buildings and campuses with clear directional signage. Their slogan is "People get lost. We fix that." I don't think they do, though. Good signage is not unlike the GPS—helpful in the moment, but a Band-Aid for a larger problem. Technology and design can help us find our way, but they don't improve our skills at all.

  In my grandfather's pool when I was a kid, I'd lie on a squeaky, blue plastic raft and close my eyes. He would grab my hand and swim around the pool, tugging me along on the raft behind him, our wrinkled, chlorine-seeped fingers entwined. He'd tread water while spinning the raft slowly. Eventually, he would stop and ask me to guess where we were in the pool without opening my eyes. By the diving board? In the shaded corner? Dead center? This was not a large pool by any standards, but besides the occasional coming and going of the bright sun, I had no tracking device. Inevitably, I'd guess: "By the back, near the cabana!" or "In the shallow end by the steps!" My guess was invariably wrong. Then we would switch and he'd climb onto the raft. Before he was even settled, splashing cool water onto the almost-burning plastic, I was off, spinning him as fast as I could while pushing the raft to all four corners of the pool. When I was exhausted, I'd say, "Okay, what do you think?" He was right every time.

  So why could he do it and I couldn't? Grekin, the author who offered the worst advice ever, uses the term "directionally challenged" when describing the people of the world who, like me, can't find their way back from CVS, or figure out which way is north or in which end of the pool they're floating. She also calls having a poor sense of direction "a real disability," though I suspect the Amer
ican Disability Association would disagree. Sense of direction is a mystery in the same way as sense of time or sense of balance. You have it or you don't. Research is continually being done, but it's not easily understood.

  Some people call sense of direction the "sixth sense." But this isn't quite right either, as not everyone is born with a sense of direction in the same way that most people are born with the other five. Sure, some folks can't hear or see, but both anecdotal and research-based evidence tells us that far, far more people are born each day without a sense of where they are in the world. And it seems to me that, for all of my attempts over the past thirty years, it's almost as impossible to improve one's sense of direction as it would be to regain lost hearing or sight. Loss or lack of such a true "sense" is surely a worse plight, but in some ways we can look at them similarly. There are things we can do to compensate, or work around our deficiencies—Braille or sign language, for instance—but for all of my trying, I'll never be able to train myself into having a strong, intuitive sense of direction. And if that's the case, then is there anything wrong with cheating? In this way it seems that the car compass or stacks of secret directions or counting rows in a movie theater is almost more impressive than truly recognizing whether I'm going north or south on an unmarked road. In working to understand and improve my sense of direction, I've realized that I'm going to be memorizing, learning by rote, forever—and that using a GPS isn't cheating but instead a work-around that makes life easier, less frustrating. I wish finding my way came naturally, but it never will. And if I'm going to be wandering through life blindfolded with a magnetic bar strapped, figuratively, to my head, I might as well be able to hear that little box bolted to my dashboard as it tells me, "Left turn ahead."