Books and study material related to visual navigation. Both in old cities where urban design has not been very clear or ordered, as well as in the wilderness, it is quite usual to fin specific places in our way where it becomes particularly hard to decide which path to follow, in opposition to easy trails or roads, where our route is almost instinctively easy to find because 'we know' where we are going.

These difficult points seldom appear, especially in already-known roads, but they demand all our attention while navigating or trailblazing, because it is there where major mistakes can take place. People who were knowledgeable and had experience even got lost in such places, entering an emergency or survival situation as fast as they could walk.

Mountaineering is an activity in which participants in many regions of the world often have to take a course away from the trail or road that is commonly used and has signals, shelters, and all sorts of amenities. In such cases, explorers often have to use telltale signals or waypoints. These fixes can be obtained using advanced equipment such as a GPS or LORAN receiver, or improvising. A small heap of rocks is a valid signpost, if you know what it means.

Paying attention to the ground is another way to find waypoints and deduce the best possible route: you will often have to follow the terrain and walk taking advantage of it instead of the opposite. This means that you will have to 'cross the river,' 'turn left behind the big rock with moss,' and so on.

Be very careful when doing this because natural objects may appear similar, and if you are trekking with a group of people it is very easy to get distracted by conversation and confuse one object with another. Whenever you are in critical areas of your intended road, don't get distracted at all.

Also bear in mind that natural references change over time due to snow fall, flooding, landslides, etc. and that these objects may look very differently according to the season of the year, sunlight and the point from which you are looking at them.

In other words, your references may appear completely different on your way to your destination than on your way back, so make sure that after passing them by you look backwards to keep a mental picture of them as they appear from the other side. This simple technique will make your life much easier.

Within an urban survival context, you will be paying attention to man-made structures and some big, natural objects such as hills, rivers and so on. Remember that after a town suffers a lot of destruction -a typical urban survival scenario - streets may have completely disappeared, and you will have to navigate your way thorough it much like in the wild.

On the other hand if you are exploring or hiking thorough uncharted territory, you will have no known reference points. Only experience will tell you which ones are good for that purpose; such skills evolve over time and this is why real, literal adventure into unknown and unexplored territories should only be undertaken by seasoned people capable of keeping their navigational skills up to a maximum level of proficiency.

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