How do you get to know a city well/local roads?

How do you get to know a city well/local roads?

Author
Discussion

vikingaero

10,256 posts

168 months

Tuesday 23rd February 2021
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Still use Google Maps!

Whenever I go somewhere new, I use Google Maps. It helps me orientate key landmarks and the layout of the streets. So if I get lost whilst walking or driving in that City I can usually go a little further ahead and work out where I am.

Let's say I am based in a hotel for a week for work. I'll look on Google Maps and check out the road layouts, what shops and restaurants are nearby, and where the petrol station and supermarkets are. If I drive one route to work, I'll choose a shortcut or more interesting route on the way home just to see where it goes. Or driving to a coastal area on holiday - I use Google Maps to see isolated country roads that end at the coast. What you normally find are the most amazing local beaches that few people visit.

It's a philosphy I learnt from my daughters. When adults buy say a new mobile, we are generally reluctant to change settings for fear of messing up the phone or not being able to get it back to its original state. When I see my daughters with new things, they actively change settings, experiment and find out what things do. It's the same with a new City of local area - dare to try.

Pit Pony

8,268 posts

120 months

Tuesday 23rd February 2021
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I use Google maps as my sat nav and ofyem deliberately ignore it. With a 100 yards you've found a new route (usually). Works great in a new city, when you just think, i wonder where that goes.

I have driven from Formby to Derby alot. On a Monday Morning and back in Friday Afternoon. 110 miles. 1:45 on a good run.

Often the M6 is choas, so I'd decide to go via Whitchurch and Chester. Or Leek and Congelton or Buxton and Macclesfield. Often the Sat Nav would be be ignored for an hour before it decided it couldn't find a quicker route than the one in my mind.

I discovered Derby by going house hunting. Although never did buy a house there. I must have driven past 50 houses and viewed 10 over a 3 year period.

dickapocalypse

5 posts

78 months

Tuesday 23rd February 2021
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I learned to drive when smartphones were becoming ubiquitous so never learned to navigate. I learned the error of my ways when my phone died in the middle of backwoods Cappadocia, by myself, with no map, a ridiculously thirsty old Hilux on an eighth of a tank, no idea where to find a petrol station, and 300km to where I needed to be (and that was before the summer storm started...)

I learned pretty quick after that. Best thing I find is to use the streetview function on google maps at home. Makes it very easy to memorise a route in advance if you know what the major turns are going to look like. But it's impossible when you have a satnav in the car, you can do the same journey dozens of times with satnav and still not learn it.

Mr Tidy

22,065 posts

126 months

Saturday 27th February 2021
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Back in 2010 I took a workplace pension early and got a part-time job delivering online shopping for a supermarket.

I learnt more about my local area in a year than I had in the previous 5!