Learning London geography

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  • I have a shit sense of direction and still get lost in Soho, and have lived in London all of my life.

    Female. 'nuf said...

    Actually, it'll have more to do with the stupid one-ways in Soho, which should really be a largely motor traffic-free zone. You can almost never take the road you would want to as a cyclist.

  • If you want to have fun, just get lost deliberately and find your way back without an A to Z, then spend hours at home desperately trying to work out where you've been. :)

    Do that, it's much more fun and encourage you to explore further than reading a map.

    me and the missus do that every now and then (by foot, not by bike), insofar we discovered;

    • great restaurant that no one seemed to know of
    • lovely little square that's hidden away
    • unique little shop, especially antique
    • better (and prettier) route to commute
    • hidden gem from the London past that's not worth mentioning in guide book.

    Even thought my missus has only been here a little over 2 years, she know a great deal of London more than my sister whom lived here all her life.

    her sense of direction is also shockingly bad, doesn't stop her from finding her way home, she would instantly know where to go if she was given a job as a courier.

  • Under the bed to hide?

  • i was born in london, and had an uncle who was chauffeur to the guinness family, i used to ride around in the front of his car with him all day when not a school, i never realised at the time, but it gave me a really good perspective on londons famous london, as was said in an earlier post, all you gotta know is north, sarf, east n' west. job done !

  • It really depends on what your learning style is, Josh. Any ideas?

    I'd make a start by riding along the nine most important major A-roads first. A1-4, A10, A11, A13 and A40 all start reasonably close to St Paul's Cathedral. The A2, A11 and A13 are furthest away; the A2 starts at Borough and the A11 and A13 at Aldgate. The A10 and A3 start at London Bridge. The ninth is the A5, which starts at Marble Arch. The A40 should run all along Oxford Street, but is in fact interrupted and doesn't include much of its length. London's layout originated with these nine roads, and once you know them well, you can find your way virtually everywhere else with some ease.

    There is a second layer of A-roads that are worth knowing: A501, A41, A104, A3211, A205, A23, A315, A402, and A404. The A406 North Circular Road is also worth knowing. Not that pleasant, but often the quickest route around North-west London.

    For those who are laughing now about knowing A-road designations--those are the ones worth knowing as they apply over reasonably long distances and save you from having to learn too many of the regularly changing street and road names. Most of the rest of London is a morass of confused, confusing, and, frankly, superfluous A-road designations. Signage for these major A-roads is surprisingly good once you start paying attention to it and can be very helpful in navigating. Like bus numbers, there are also usually some relationships between A-road numbers that can help with guessing if you're lost.

    There are some roads and streets of such obvious character, like Park Lane, that I haven't included, as they're easily knowable. The above A-roads, however, include quite a lot of London's most important and distinctive streets, anyway. All the rest of London you will be able to fill in over time.

    But, as I said, if you prefer not to learn from a more or less systematic beginning, another approach may work better for you. I never took the systematic approach, either, I've just been riding my bikes around London for fifteen years. I'm sure that learning about these A-roads would have made learning much quicker for me, at least. If you want to have fun, just get lost deliberately and find your way back without an A to Z, then spend hours at home desperately trying to work out where you've been. :)

    You wouldn't perhaps be German would you?

    I was going to say something very similar, but couldn't be bothered ;)

  • Oliver's german approach to this question is correct...

    I can't remember street names for shit, but every route I've taken sticks in my head like wet dream sheets. I remember things from the oddest little indicators, the color of the door on the turning, etc.

    I recently found I could train this semi-photographic memory, but have not been able to translate it to studying yet. The last place it came in handy was a bookshop- and I weirded my girlfriend out with it.

    I used to start by following bus routes, because they zig zag all over the place so inevitably you can get fairly close to where you want to go without really trying hard.

    oh and don't ever follow mashton.

  • Don't give up on the AZ yet, although if you're not venturing outside of zone 3 then the mini version is better and if you have a decent pocket to keep it in then the ringbound one works a treat as you can leave it open to the relevant page. If it makes you feel any better, I have a pretty good sense of direction and memory for places and I still went through three AZs in my first two years living in London. I did get out a lot though.

    I'm not to sure if TfL are still doing them but the free cycling maps are a great boon though, they're light, foldable and, most importantly, free. As well as Oliver's A road suggestion, learn where the boroughs lie. A lot of road signs will direct you to the next borough and seeing a sign pointing to a borough you don't need to pass though is handy for realising a one way system has spat you out in the wrong direction.

    Landmarking works well as there is often enough places, shops, road names, objects that will catch your attention and can remind you that you're near a turn. Finally, if you are out and mapless and don't see anywhere you recognise then this is where London's public transport networks gets really useful. Train and tube stations will almost always have a bunch of signs pointing to them and a map of the local area in them.
    Bus stops with shelters usually have a spider map in them and the sign will almost always say which way the buses are going. Limited detail but usually enough to put you in the right direction or towards a source of more information.

  • TfL cycling maps
    You can pick them up from bike shops (they are free).

  • Cycling Maps are great from TFL. They do still do them free I believe.
    ^^^ Link above.

    I've not really used them yet, since I plan a route in my head via Google and jot down brief key points like my post above, to guide me if I'm a bit lost.
    But I did have a flick through some. Definately worth ordering them.

    On the website you can only order up to 6 at a time, so you'll need to place a second order to get the whole collection of London.

    A friend of mine got all the bus maps of london, and stuck them all together to make a really huge map to put on his wall. He calls it the ultimate map of london... I guess that would be nice to have something like that to have look at when you are bored.

  • If it makes you feel any better, I have a pretty good sense of direction and memory for places and I still went through three AZs in my first two years living in London. I did get out a lot though.

    scoffs

    I'm still on my 1993 edition Nicholson Streetfinder. Ha!

    I do have a small A to Z handy for visitors, though.

    I'm not to sure if TfL are still doing them but the free cycling maps are a great boon though, they're light, foldable and, most importantly, free.

    Another excellent LCC initiative. These maps go back to the early 90s and were finally published on a much bigger scale when TfL was formed. Millions have been handed out.

    As well as Oliver's A road suggestion, learn where the boroughs lie. A lot of road signs will direct you to the next borough and seeing a sign pointing to a borough you don't need to pass through is handy for realising a one way system has spat you out in the wrong direction.

    Ha, I've never noticed many signs pointing to boroughs. Are you sure that they don't only point to the borough by accident through pointing to the London Borough's name-giving London Metropolitan Borough?

    Landmarking works well as there is often enough places, shops, road names, objects that will catch your attention and can remind you that you're near a turn.

    That will certainly work for some people, depending on learning style. Many people can't read maps well at all, let alone remember visual information. One reason why the London Cycle Guides are so successful is because they reduce the amount of information cyclists have to take in by recommending fewer options. (Plus, of course, you get a pretty good map for free.)

  • use the Force.

    yawn

  • YouTube- The Real Thing - Can You Feel The Force?

    Can you feel the force? Balki can.


  • seems that you need to activate the right hippocampus

  • Uni Campus for Hippo's?

  • Buy two London A-Z, rip out all the pages, cut the overlapping bits off and then stick them together and put it up on your wall. This way you can see the whole of London at a glance in a format that is recognisable.

  • oh and don't ever follow mashton.

    this is definitely key :P

    i was chatting to a taxi driver yesterday about The Knowledge. said it took her three years of driving around on a scooter to pass it, and the last year she gave up her job and did nothing else. apparently there is an 80% drop out rate.

  • Buy two London A-Z, rip out all the pages, cut the overlapping bits off and then stick them together and put it up on your wall. This way you can see the whole of London at a glance in a format that is recognisable.

    Or buy and atoz map for a quarter of the price?

  • build a fucking scale model of london.

    prob the best way of learning the city.... i have done it many times.
    too many times.

    i dont know all the road names, but i have a pretty good map of london in my head these days.

    oh, and stop being such a vagine and HTFU.

  • If you need to get your bearings, remember that TV aerials point to Crystal Palace.

    and the Central Point building, the BT Tower, the new skyscraper at Elephant and Castle... etc.

  • Buy two London A-Z, rip out all the pages, cut the overlapping bits off and then stick them together and put it up on your wall. This way you can see the whole of London at a glance in a format that is recognisable.

    Or buy and atoz map for a quarter of the price?

    What most people do these days is by glueing the free London Cycle Guides together. It gets pretty huge but if you do it well, it's an amazing wall covering.

  • the tfl cycling maps are rad and they will send them to you freepost too, but regardless, a phone with google maps / gps is far superior as it actually tells you where you are, after all the moment you realise you need to stop and look at a map, figuring out where you are starting from is the bigger problem.

  • top tip.

    stanfords on long acre sell a paper version of the a-z on one piece of paper.

    it is about a1 size and costs less than a tenner.

    mix a dilute batch of wall paper paste and wack up on the wall in your hall.

    top tip no 2. to get it on the wall is a job for two / three people.

    london is a breeze thereafter. you just check the route before you set off.

    well. it has worked for me.

    good luck.

    I've been looking for a map like that for ages, nice one! The Central one covers a massive area as well.
    link is here http://www.stanfords.co.uk/stock/central-london-master-map-flat-7681/

  • What most people do these days is by glueing the free London Cycle Guides together. It gets pretty huge but if you do it well, it's an amazing wall covering.

    There are 14 maps. That'l be huuuuuuuge, but awesome! I'd have to need a chair to stand on to see the upper part of london.

    Also, they are all double sided... Only way around it is getting x2 the ammount?

  • I've been looking for a map like that for ages, nice one! The Central one covers a massive area as well.
    link is here http://www.stanfords.co.uk/stock/central-london-master-map-flat-7681/

    You might be better off getting the TFL maps?
    They cover the whole of London.

  • Yep, one of my mates did it - it was a ridiculous size - but very awesome.
    I thought the second side just had a legend and the central london map on it...?

    EDIT @lalililalalaialo I've already got those, would actually prefer the A to Z one, you get much more info in the central one that you do with the cycle ones (my walls arent that big)

        plus I only really need central london, as its of it are so spindly - greater london is easier to navigate as it's not so compacted.
    
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Learning London geography

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