A psychological take on how humans relate to everything spatial. Beginning with a history of navigation and the roots of wayfinding, the author offers thoughts on how we navigate through both familiar and unfamiliar places.

Chapters consider the reasons we become lost and some strategies to employ when we’d like to be found; the impact which holding different professions (taxi drivers in London, England), being of different ages (kids and seniors), or how being one sex over another can have on our ability to navigate through our daily lives; and the ways in which the design of our communities directly impacts our ability to navigate and have meaningful interactions with spaces.

Throughout the book the author continually touches on the fact that GPS & satnav are making us spatially stupid and are likely setting us up for failure in navigation when these modern tools are not available to us and needed most. The final chapter in the book, on the impact dementia has on one’s spatial cognition and why “wandering” is good for the brain (and the soul), was a welcomed surprised given the daily conditions which some of my family members are living with these days.