Getting over getting lost while travelling

When you’re tagging along on your significant other’s business travel, there are many times you have got to venture out on your own. You can only spend so much time in your hotel room raiding the mini bar and watching re-runs of bad 80s TV while your spouse is working.

My sense of direction is ridiculous. If I’m on foot and I can keep track of landmarks, I’m usually okay. If I have to find my way somewhere using an interstate highway or public transit, on the other hand, I slip into a sweaty panic about getting lost.

Steve used to think it was great fun when travelling to randomly ask me what direction we’d have to head to get back to our hotel or apartment. I would invariably choose the wrong way, which further eroded my confidence. He thought I’d get better at it.  He stopped doing that when one day in response I balled up my little fists and had a small but effective tantrum that might have involved growling. It was a prime example of the open, adult communication style that keeps our marriage in tact.

Rationally, I know that as long as I have the address of where I’m staying and my credit card, I can get back to home base. It may be outrageously expensive, but it’s a last resort (obviously not talking about hiking alone in the rain forest here). I knew I just had to face my fear and hey, why start small?

Step One: Get lost in Tokyo

A few years back I travelled to Taipei for my own work gig. Steve was unable to tag along so I was on my own. The flight included a stopover in Tokyo. After much deliberation (and fretting), I decided I could not pass up the chance to stay there a couple of days on my way back. I had a handler in Taipei so I wasn’t really on my own very much there, but in Tokyo, it was all me.

I decided that arming myself with information well in advance would be the key to reducing anxiety. I scoured the Internet on every forum and travel site I could find about taking the train from Narita Airport to the hotel I booked in Shibuya. I’m sure Tokyo transit workers don’t study the pubic transportation routes as thoroughly as I did, but it reduced my anxiety enough for me to step off the plane.

Surprisingly, despite how large and crowded it is, I found Tokyo fairly easy to navigate. It has excellent way finding signage and environmental design that make it clear where you have to go. I was amazed. Arriving at the train station near my hotel I was briefly overwhelmed by the truly vast kaleidoscope of people on the street and (big surprise) I got turned around. The instructions I’d memorized evaporated and then it happened—I was lost. I asked a young couple if they could help. They tried but couldn’t speak English. I muddled along for some time trying to stay calm and by chance I glimpsed the logo for my hotel in the distance. What a relief!

I got lost and boarded the wrong subway train at a few points during my stay as well, but each time, I panicked a bit less. I got to all the main sights I wanted to see and back to my hotel — it just took me a bit longer than expected sometimes.

Step Two: Wash, rinse, repeat

That Tokyo trip was super empowering. I was pretty anxious at first, but as I went along, my confidence grew. Travelling to this enormous metropolis on my own was perhaps a larger first step than necessary to overcoming my fear, but in a way it was the allure of this opportunity to visit a spectacular city that propelled me to face my fear in the first place.

Honestly, Steve is a bit of a crutch. He loves puzzles, has a stupidly amazing command of spatial relations and rarely gets turned around even in an unfamiliar environment. This means I immediately defer to him when we’re travelling together. When I’m on my own, it might take a bit more prep and a concious awareness, but I can find my way around and do so more often now.

Step Three: Siri, I love you!

My Tokyo adventure was in the time before smartphones. The Apple iPhone virtual assistant Siri is a godsend to the directionally challenged. Frankly, Siri has changed my travel world when it comes to navigating new urban centres. I can simply ask Siri how to get back to my hotel and she steers me in the right direction. As long as I have an unlocked phone, SIM card, and a reasonably priced pay-as-you-go data plan, getting completely lost is very unlikely. Of course, I first need to find the mobile phone store to get set up.

Have you ever been spectacularly lost when travelling?

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