The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally

It would be true to say that I would not be writing this blog if the sun rose in the same place each day. I don’t mean that in a very general sense, it’s not because the whole world would be very different and maybe the dinosaurs would have survived and humans would never have evolved, blah, blah…

No, it is because in the spring of 2008 I was busy trying to work out whether there was any point in trying to make a living by teaching natural navigation, or not. Whether, perhaps, that was the stupidest idea I had ever had, a competition with some depth in the field. The problem was that there was no ‘sensible’ way of deciding whether to go ahead with it or not. There was no point bouncing the idea off family, bank managers, priests or ouija boards. The answers that would come back…

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For a short and strange time, the esoteric, romantic and mostly-undiscovered subject of natural navigation is about to shrug off its shyness and dive, screaming and giggling, into the mainstream.

On Wednesday 5th October at 8pm, All Roads Lead Home, will be on BBC2.

It is going to be a beautiful moment, except the bits I’m in, which will be a bit feral.

In the programme, Alison Steadman, Sue Perkins and Stephen Mangan learn the basics of natural navigation before being released into the wilds of Cornwall (Episode 1), Ireland and then Wales & Liverpool.

I will be posting more about the programme, including some info about the making of the series on this website over the coming weeks. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the programme.

You’ll love the telly, it’s like the newfangled internet but with good-quality large pictures that move and excellent…

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Welcome to those of you who have found your way here, on the trail from BBC1′s Country Tracks. (For those of you who haven’t, a programme has just gone out on BBC1 in which I gave the presenter Miriam Cooke some natural navigation tips in a forest by the Arch, near Devil’s Bridge, in Ceredigion, Wales. There’s a short clip here.)

However you found your way, now that you are here have a bit of an explore and get as lost in this website as you like.

If you’ve enjoyed watching some natural navigation on TV, then make sure you tune to the series, All Roads Lead Home, which will go out on BBC2 in October.

If you’d like to learn more about natural navigation in the meantime, then have a browse of the website or my book on the subject.

This photo, from my recent and gallette-packed French summer holiday, shows the distinctive orange lichens that have daubed a southern-facing wall of Suscinio Castle in Brittany.

Being a coastal region, Brittany is a natural home for these orange Xanthoria lichens, which can be both a blessing and curse when it comes to using them to understand direction. This is because conditions need to be close to perfect for lichens to thrive, but if they are too good then a lichen will manage well on more than one side, and occasionally on all sides.

This nuance creates a challenge for those new to the subject of natural navigation, including those who took part in the upcoming BBC2 series, ‘All Roads Lead Home’. Sue Perkins, in particular, was understandably frustrated that the lichens would not always obey a perfect rule in terms of the aspect they preferred. In the very short time…

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I’m just back from a week in Cornwall, where I have been helping the BBC with a new series called, ‘All Roads Lead Home’.

It has been an amazing experience and most excitingly it means that… natural navigation is coming to a televison near you soon!

The premise of the series is as follows: Alison Steadman, Sue Perkins and Stephen Mangan learn how to navigate naturally and then go on 3 journeys together, each one to a place that holds some important connection for them. (Sue Perkins loves and lives in Cornwall, when she is not inhabiting a tv or radio that is.)

There will be lots of walking in stunning locations, a little messing around in small boats and even some natural navigation in the air. I will be adding loads more detail here during the weeks in the lead up to the time the series goes out, in…

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After an intense week of scouting in northwest Ireland with the BBC last week, I felt a little weary come Saturday morning. We had covered almost all of the largest island of the coast of Ireland, Achill Island in County Mayo, and then zoomed about Ballycroy and a few other places too. A couple of days mucking about would have been nice, but instead I had to get the first draft of my new book to my publisher’s by this morning. Tomorrow I’m off to Cornwall with Zoe Timmers from the Beeb again. One of those busy times, but all the small discoveries make the hecticness worthwhile.

In this picture we are looking east in Ballycroy National Park. Notice how the two sides of this drainage ditch look very different. The darker left side of the ditch, that is the south-facing northern side, is covered in a thick…

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I recently came across this short video by Michael Barton. It contains a neat natural navigation tip and bushcraft at its most fun. Click on the image below to watch the video.

One of the natural navigation techniques that ocean sailors have used for centuries is noticing that the incidence of flotsam and jetsam increases, on average, as you get closer to land.

A similar principle can be used on land to find towns or villages. The number of roads, paths, power lines and communication cables increases as you get nearer a town; of course light and noise pollution also increase. There are some more ‘lateral’ clues too.

On the weekend I was walking with friends in the South Downs. My friend had the map and so I did not know exactly how far we were from our lunch stop, the George and Dragon pub in the West Sussex village of Burpham. We had been walking for about 9 miles, in deep snow and along slushy paths. We were hungry, which can help sharpen the senses.

I knew that we were…

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My book is being published in the US in January. I’m very excited and not a little curious to see how American readers react to it.

I can’t think of a book that has hurtled more determinedly into the gap between the two faces of America. Is it a country of ‘drive 100 yards to the mall’ or ‘head west’, the pioneer spirit and Henry David Thoreau? Of course it is both; I have seen someone in Florida drive between two shops but stay in the same car-park, but I have also watched someone who thirsted so greatly for the outdoors that they died in front of me in Arizona.

British readers will know that this is not a book about physical exertion, but one about thoughts.

Here is a sneak preview of the US cover. What do you think?

The US edition can be pre-ordered on

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Welcome to all New York Times readers. You have successfully navigated your way to the home of natural navigation on the Internet. Enjoy a wander through these pages, or, if you prefer the feel of paper in your hands, check out my book, The Natural Navigator. It is being published in the US in January.

If you are not a NYT reader, but would like to be then my natural navigation article can be found here.