Street Maps

Up to even a couple years ago, it was basically necessary to keep a set of street maps in your car. Unless you knew a city very well, you would get lost at some point, and a street map could really come in handy to find a way out. Nowadays, people barely bother with buying general street level maps. Services like Yahoo Maps, Map Quest, and Google Maps have made it easy to get directions to any place you want to. With that convenience available, many people wonder why they should carry a street map at all.

Nowadays, I combine both the new approach and the old approach. I print out street maps from the Internet, getting directions if I am going somewhere where I have not been before. If I have been there even once, however, a try to figure it out either from memory or using foldout maps. This makes me have to actually think about where I am going, something that I haven't had to do in the last couple of years. Because of using this strategy, slowly but surely, I am learning how to find my way around the city. It is taking some time, but it will happen soon.

Of course, there are some advantages that online maps have over traditional street maps. One of the biggest ones is the ability to zoom in to different levels of magnification. If you really study them, they can allow you to use the same software to understand a particular region of the city and the way the city as a whole works. You can see how everything is connected, making online map tools a valuable part of learning your way around. You just have to remember to not make it too easy for yourself. If you do, you will never learn how to find your from point A to point B.

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