TACTICAL WISDOM: A Map and A Compass

Originally appears on Tactical Wisdom and authored by my friend Joe Dolio. -NCS

In our overly modern world, some of the lost arts are at risk of fading away. Navigating by map and compass is one of them. Everyone carries their nearly-manadatory spy device with them and it very conveniently has several map and navigation apps on it. Do you know why? So that they can sell advertisers and anyone else who is interested information on your every move. Neat.

They’ve made it so convenient that you are perfectly willing to let them spy on you in exchange for easy navigation and the ability to find over-priced and low-quality coffee.

But what will you do if you are far from home and the networks go down? How will you get home? To the market to obtain food or medicine? How will you be able to map a route to Aunt Jennie’s place over the hills and through the woods?

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go

Psalm 32:8

The answer is obviously to learn how to use paper maps and a compass to navigate. Navigation is more than just knowing how to use a map and how to use a compass. It’s knowing how use both of them TOGETHER to positively find your location, plan a route to follow, and then follow it using the compass.

In order to do that, you have to learn that your map, the earth, and your compass all speak a different language. The difference between true north (the earth), grid north (your map), and magnetic north (your compass) is subtle but absolutely vital. It’s like a Scottish guy talking to a Canadian, and the Canadian then telling the story to an Aussie. One of my favorite ways of describing this is telling the story of NC Scout with his NC Accent trying to talk to an Irish bartender, after both of them had been drinking. They both got to the same area, but not quite exact….you had to be there. Anyway, with my translating and a lot of pointing, Scout and I got the Orange Jameson we wanted, and Kathy said “Oh, fer fooks sake, why didn’t ya jooost say soo?”. We all laughed.

Understanding magnetic declination is exactly like that. If you plan out a route only using the map and never adjust your azimuths for declination, you will never find where you are going. The farther you go, the more important it is. Learn to use a map and compass together and then navigate. The same goes with shooting an azimuth with your compass and then trying to plot it on your map…you need to adjust it first.

There are three great books for this, all linked below. The first, in my humble opinion, is the best: TW-02, Fieldcraft. A command sergeant major (USMC) called me to let me know it was the best explanation he’d heard. The second is Be an Expert with Map & Compass, which is where I pull my training drills from. The third is the NOLS Wilderness Navigation book. All three together make a great library.

For maps, I use http://www.mytopo.com, as they will let you build a custom topo map centered on whatever location you want. You can also buy topo maps from the USGS directly. Buy them now and have them on hand. Pick up free state maps everytime you pass a highway “Welcome Center”. Side note: Some states now require you to sign in and explain your trip to get one; it’s not illegal to lie to a rest room clerk. Another great kind of map is a DeLorme Atlas & Gazeteer. For good outdoor maps, National Geographic “adventure maps” are waterproof and tear resistant. You can find them for most of the US & Canada. GM Johnson is my favorite source for city street maps.

Topographical maps come with the declination printed on them, but for state highway maps and Atlases, you can go to magnetic-declination.com and get the declination for the center of the map and write it somewhere on the margin for future reference so that your map is always ready to use. I generally look up the declination for my destination before I go on a trip and write it in my handy notebook so that if the worst happens while I am away from home base, I have a good idea of the declination.

As far as compasses, I stick to the tried and true Cammenga Lensatic US military issue one. There are a lot of fancy compasses out there, but I haven’t found one faster in the field and on the move, ESPECIALLY AT NIGHT, than the Cammenga. The Brunton Lensatic is very close and lighter in weight, but it doesn’t have tritium. A caution for those with fancy compasses that let you adjust the declination: unless you reset it to zero after every trip, you’re going to get lost the second time you adjust it. If I adjusted it for 13 degrees west on my first trip, and my second trip is at 6 degrees east, unless I zeroed it in between, I’ll only adjust it to 7 degrees west, which is still 13 degrees from where I want to go. I just don’t adjust it – do the math instead.

Take a class and learn. This Friday, I’ll be at Mountain Readiness Fallout in Harmony, NC teaching Essentials of Land Navigation course. Next Tuesday-Thursday, land navigation is an entire day of the Fieldcraft class I’ll be teaching at the Brushbeater Training Center. As it is a physical skill, you have to get out and practice.

In addition to just navigation, learn resection and intersection. These enable you to find yourself (resection) or any point you can see (intersection) on the map.

Stop relying on technology. Start being self-reliant.

By NC ScoutPublished On: October 14, 2025Categories: Uncategorized1 Comment

About the Author: NC Scout

NC Scout is the nom de guerre of a former Infantry Scout and Sergeant in one of the Army’s best Reconnaissance Units. He has combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He teaches a series of courses focusing on small unit skills rarely if ever taught anywhere else in the prepping and survival field, including his RTO Course which focuses on small unit communications. In his free time he is an avid hunter, bushcrafter, writer, long range shooter, prepper, amateur radio operator and Libertarian activist. He can be contacted at [email protected] or via his blog at brushbeater.wordpress.com .

One Comment

Patrick Kelly October 14, 2025 at 08:48

I recently drove from North Carolina to Iowa via GPS. Driving around/thru Indianapolis was a nightmare made possible with the GPS and even then I made a couple of wrong turns. When I finally reached my hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, the new highway system there was amazingly simplified to nearly impossible without the GPS. After a fine morning on a local gun range, we followed up with a fine afternoon drinking Irish whiskey and when it came time to leave I discovered that my GPS had “shit the bed.” In an altered state of mind I immediately panicked because the driver I followed took a very convoluted route with the intent of confusing the shit out of me and it worked. Getting back to my motel I was on my own. I quickly assessed my situation and reverted to my 1975 memory of the layout of the town, avoided neighborhoods went on dead reckoning and like magic, found my motel with no problem. This also gave me time to think about my plan to RTB North Carolina and things like the drive through Indianapolis. As a long time ago backpacking instructor followed by time in the Rangers and Special Forces I had to throttle back my mind and reassess my route home. Being a Ranger School graduate and a Special Forces School graduate I always carry a Rand McNally Road Atlas even though several people have said, “That’s so old school. You don’t need that. You have a GPS.” I respond with, “And what if my GPS craps out on me?” Their reply is “That never happens.” This time it did and I immediately had a panic attack. Of course I could have stopped at a Love’s Truck Stop and shucked out some Benjamin’s for a new GPS and then get out my lap top, open wifi and then down load the current software but that would take some time and I’d have to break out my emergency cash which at the time I wasn’t prepared to do.

I’ve driven across the US several times before GPS was invented and I spent countless hours patrolling in the woods before GPS and in a comparative analysis I realized that indeed navigating with map and compass is a lost art. Thanks to the liquid courage that comes in “airliner bottles” I decided to approach my predicament like a “military training mission” and get back to my roots and simplify my routes.

This means that map reconnaissance, a lost art, is good for peace of mind and that means the soul.
My new route, I avoided driving through the major big cities and the seemingly endless super highway construction in favor of a way less stressful drive.

In the end, what to be the most stressful was actually having to think and do route planning and the real source of stress was no longer having the convenience of GPS technology.

When I stopped for my second resupply of “Little Friends – air liner bottles” the clerk asked if I was going to catch an flight someplace. I told him that my GPS crapped out and I was back to driving with maps for guidance and direction. He thought about that for a moment and then said, “That’s a good refresher. You’ll learn to appreciate the GPS but not rely on it plus bring back the self confidence that you can still read maps find your way “old school” again.” That made sense.