The Case for Compass Watches

With trusty compass watch on wrist, I felt well-equipped to navigate foreign lands. Was my confidence well-placed?

Yeah baby. I'm very pleased with how useful it was, but not in the way you'd expect. I rarely found myself hiking in wilderness areas in need of direction. Most of the time, the trails were well-marked, or I could use the sun or local landmarks to roughly orientate myself. But in the cities and even inside buildings, it was valuable being able to quickly find north. I especially recommend having a compass in Las Vegas. In the middle of those vast gaming floors, with no view of the outside world, it's hideous trying to figure out where you are. A quick look at the compass and you're lost no more. Surely the casinos wouldn't deliberately make it hard for you to leave, but there was a definite lack of signage and mappage, and with no windows to the outside world, it would be easy to give up and stay, rather than find an exit. 

The watch also came in handy because the cheap sat nav bought from Walmart was not trustworthy, especially first thing each morning. For the first few minutes after she was turned on, she'd give random directions. The worst occasion was in the city of Bend, Oregon. We left the hotel and wanted to hop on the highway north to Portland but ten to fifteen minutes later we had circled around the suburb and were back at the hotel ! If only we'd trusted the compass and just headed north. After that, I knew to always check that the sat nav directions were vaguely right.

Now that I'm back in familiar territory, I'll rarely use the compass, but it's nice to know it's there if I ever need to switch to Bear Grylls mode.