My dad is doing some contests where you need to find your way in the woods and I was curious how do people know where they are in relation to where they need to go.
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There are many ways in which you can orient yourself. For instance, you can find your way by observing landmarks. As you get closer and move relative to them, their appearant position (that is the position you see the object in) changes, aswell as their size. This really only works over distances of less than 1.5km though, as there’s a physical limitation on how much info our brains can get about an object’s distance, that limit being the distance our eyes are apart (this is why, in the world wars, you see periscopes like [this one](https://www.derpanzerbaer-militaria.de/WebRoot/Store17/Shops/82125743/5FAF/A898/DBEE/B5C0/B421/0A0C/6D11/CA0E/scherenrohr.jpg), which, in increasing the effective distance between your eyes, allow you to more accurately determine the distance to an object, even over larger distances, though this was used for things like guiding artillery rather than navigation; this fell out of use with the introduction of laser rangefinding)
Another option is celestial navigation. If you have a fix point in the sky, say, Polaris (which is pretty much exactly above the Earth’s rotational axis, certainly close enough for us not to notice the movement without telescopes, by keeping said fix point in the same position relative to you, you can now maintain a specific heading. Similarly, if you know roughly what time of day it is, you can use the position of the sun to determine a rough heading.
And of course, having a map is always useful. Afterall, knowing what direction you are going is only one half of the puzzle. As the old roman saying goes, if you don’t know to what port you are sailing, no wind is ever opportune.
To find your way with a map, you ideally need to know a starting point. From there, keep track of your direction, and make sure to periodically mark your position. Ideally, do this when you are in a place that allows you to at least somewhat accurately ascertain your position. For instance, looking at a river and observing its bends is a possibility. Or, if you have two landmarks in sight, do the following:
Figure out approximately what position landmark 1 is relative to you (Ideally, use a compass to figure out an exact number of degrees). Then, draw a straight line on your map, starting at landmark 1 and heading the other direction (so for instance, if the object in question is due west, that’s 270°, draw a line in a 90° direction. For this, make sure your map is oriented the right way first). Then, repeat this for landmark 2. Wherever the two resulting lines intersect is your current position.
Alternatively, you can mark it every time you make a turn, but this is generally a bad method of navigation for three reasons:
1: Even with landmarks, unless you make sure to follow a compass, you never know your exact direction, especially because humans are not good at moving in straight lines without straight lines guiding them.
2: You also need to make sure you know exactly how fast you are moving at any one time, else this does not work. However, humans don’t generally know how fast they are.
3: Unless you ALSO know exactly how long you have been going that speed, you can’t estimate your position at all.
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