sense of direction and location

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It depends on the environment for me.

If Im riding in a car in a city I can tell you NSEW but I cant tell you where I am or where Im going. If Ive been there a few times driving in the country Im pretty good with directions but if you drop me on foot in the woods you cant get me lost if you try.

Anyone tried to give motorists directions? Do you know that feeling when you're trying to be helpful but you know you should really keep your mouth shut? I'm sure I've sent a few on wild goose chases. They're probably still driving round cursing me.

Hehe, I've learned NOT to give directions for the most part.. I've lived here 3 years and still don't know the streets well enough to direct someone.

I don't have a good sense of direction, nor can I tell people how to get to places. One time I was at one place trying to find a bathroom and I asked my mom where it was, which she explained to me. I tried looking for it three times, but could never find it and my mom ended up walking with me there.

Giving me directions by street names would not help either. I use visual markers, like a certain store or tree or something to find places. I'm hopeless at telling people how to get to places, so I just wind up saying "I don't know"

I'll get messed up with left and right too. They'll tell me left and I'll go right, ect. I imagine I'm probably a visual thinker, so it's probably why I get messed up with directions.

I have a very good sense of direction while driving but not while walking; while walking I get lost a lot, I even get lost in buildings. But while driving I am somehow able to find my way with just the vaguest notion of where to go. I'm also very good at looking at a map and memorizing the driving directions.

Extremely good sense of direction here. I've been lost a total of 4 times in my life, and 3 of them were when I was in a new city with no map. And even then, I was only off by two or three blocks.
I can Google-earth-in-my-head any area I'm reasonably familiar with, but the only problem comes when I'm giving other people driving directions simply because I forget or ignore street names.
Navigating in a lot (note: not all, not even many or several... just, a lot) of US cities tends to be fairly easy given that they follow a grid plan. The main differences come in the naming conventions... some have E-W streets named, and N-S streets numbered, or some similar scheme. Others do it E-W streets numbered, N-W streets named.
As far as wilderness navigation, I've actually won money from people betting on me that they could get me lost.

Navigating in Victoria is a whole nother kettle of fish. The local joke here is that all the streets were laid out by a drunken farmer following his equally-drunken cow. Take a look at a streetmap of Vic sometime.

I have good sense of direction. I can read maps and I look at street names and find my way around and I use landmarks.

I have had to give people directions a lot, too.

Tim

I have a good sense of direction. I can read a map very well. Also, if I have been to the place once I can normal find it again, which is handy when my dad and I are in a big city. I do this by landmarks which I seem to remember without even trying to do it. (It's a nice ability to have.) However, if I have never been there, don't have map, or written direction, I get lost very fast. I can give directions, but with landmarks than street names, expect I do know the major street names. (I have to give directions to where I work a lot since it's not where most people would look for it.) I'm awful with street names and still don't know street names in the town I live but I know how to get places.

I've often said that I "drive by the pictures in my head so I need landmarks to navigate."

Then I read how Temple G. said that autistics "think in pictures."

Maybe Asp/HFA has survived because it has some non-obvious practical bennefits like being able to navigate when there are no road signs or street maps (as there would be none when we all had stone knives and bear-skins).

Where the heck am I?

A while ago, my mom saw a bumper sticker that said, "I'm not lost, I'm exploring."

I am like that too! My dad gives directions with N/E/S/W and I have to stop him and ask, "So, if we're going down this street and we're headed toward this other street, do we turn left or right?" Forget telling me that something is on the NE corner of an intersection, or asking me to walk to the south-facing side of a building. And just last month it took me 40 minutes to find 8 items in a huge Kmart (and not because the items were hidden ), man that made me frustrated. I also used to get semi-lost at school, especially in college. I'd frequently wind up taking the long way into a building or classroom because I couldn't figure out what was connected together.

Edit: I am wondering, is the good-at-directions people to hopelessly-lost people ratio about the same among NTs, or are the hopelessly-lost, well, hopelessly lost, because of NVLD? I read somewhere (quite possibly on this site) that up to 80% of people with AS also have some degree of NVLD. If that's incorrect, please correct me.

I navigate with reference to North, East, South, West. Using landmarks (buildings, river direction, land forms) and things like wind direction, the position of the sun and the stars.

I can’t however remember street names. Get confused between left and right. And forget where I've left the car (unless I link it mentally to a landmark).

Exactly me as well! When I was little and my grandmother took me somewhere, she always asked for directions to test me. So, when we got into the car, she'd ask, "Do I have to turn right or left at place XY". I never knew. I couldn't even remember what the places looked like (as a whole).
But still, when I was forgotten after school and had to walk home by myself for the very first time, I got it all right - my family didn't believe me I got home on my own at first! Because it was a five-minute walk, very short, very easy, but as I had never been able to explain it, I wasn't allowed to go to school on my own up to second year.

I noticed that although I don't notice the same huge things, like, huge shops or very obvious looking signs, I notice different things. Like luminous advertising or structure of the stones I'm walking on. I always find my way back or somewhere I wasn't before just by studying a map.

Last month there was this man in a huge silver car in front of our school. He asked me where a certain street is to be found. I couldn't tell him.
Some time later I noticed said street is printed on all our papers from school... I was standing on that street and didn't know it up to then!

I have a good sense of direction only if i let my feet lead the way. If i stop and try to figure out where i'm going i only confuse myself. Like someone told me they're is an old saying " if you think long, you think wrong'' or something like that.