Navigation & Maps

Getting lost in the Serengeti — how featureless terrain breaks your navigation habits

I got genuinely turned around in the Serengeti. Not lost in a life-threatening sense, but lost enough to understand why people die in flat country. The problem is there are no handrails: no ridgeline, no drainage, no distinctive peak. Grass, acacia, horizon, repeat. Every direction looks like the last one. What actually got me straightened out was going back to basics — sun position for a rough bearing, a known road corridor as a catch feature, and walking a deliberate straight line instead of drifting toward whatever looked easier. Lessons I took home for anywhere flat, including prairie and big burns: - Take a bearing before you leave camp, not after you are confused. - Pick a catch feature — a road, river, fence line — that you cannot miss. - Trust the compass over your gut. Your gut is wrong in open country. Anybody else have a flat-terrain navigation story? Those scare me more than mountains.