Sure, not all who wander are lost. But when you’ve been walking in circles for hours and your day hike is stretching into an overnight, that saying is cold comfort. The solution? Don’t get lost in the ...

Navigation of the world’s wild places using a compass and paper map is a must-have skill. With it, you’ll always find your ...

A fair number of boats we test today don’t have compasses, a shortcoming that many boaters consider a nautical no-no. A compass ensures safe navigation, even when a boat is equipped with a GPS.

The needle points to magnetic north, not true north, and they’re hundreds of miles apart. Since topographic maps are oriented to true north, you need to resolve this difference, called declination.

iOS ships with a basic compass that you can use to find your basic heading when driving or hiking. It's not as robust as some third-party orienteering apps, but it will work in a pinch when these ...

From ancient civilizations to modern times, compasses have played an important role in helping people find their way. But with the advent of GPS and other advanced technologies, many people wonder if ...

A compass needle is essentially a thin bar magnet. If it were free to move in all three dimensions, a magnet would line up along any local magnetic field line. Field lines are graphical ...