When was the last time you got lost?

with no technology to save you.

I went for a run this morning in one of my favorite places in Seattle, Discovery Park. I was running the Loop Trail, a trail I have walked more than a dozen times in the last two years. I know every turn, every crushing hill.

At an intersection, I saw a couple stop and hover over the man’s phone, checking to see if they were on the right path.

It’s hard to get lost in this park, I thought to myself. There are signposts at every junction, pointing you along the loop trail or to the North Parking Lot or the Visitor Center.

Then I remembered back to my first trip to the park. We didn’t have a car yet, so we took the bus to the edge and walked in. I used Google Maps to navigate us from our Airbnb in Queen Anne to the center of the park. Then I used AllTrails to make sure that we were on the loop trail the whole time. We did veer off it once, but the map told me immediately, so we didn’t stray far from our intended path.

It got me thinking. When was the last time I was truly lost?

I thought of the winding streets of Hanoi, Vietnam. I was there in 2015. I didn’t have a smartphone. For the entire five months I traveled this region, I relied on the small maps in my Southeast Asia on a Shoestring Lonely Planet.

I wandered down the streets packed with motorbikes, people sitting on the stoops of their homes, the endless sound of honking horns making it hard to think. The oppressive heat and my 35L backpack bursting at the seams both weighed me down as I walked. And all the while, trying to find a street sign, trying to figure out where I was on this tiny map in the book.

Could it really be that I haven’t been lost in over a decade?

I came to an intersection and looked at the signpost. It didn’t say loop trail. Did I miss my turn?

I looked straight ahead, then to the right where the trail led. Both looked unfamiliar. The loop trail is usually easy to follow because you barely have to turn.

I went right, knowing it was probably the wrong way, knowing that I was about to head down uncharted territory.

I kept my phone in my pocket as I looked up at the mossy trees above me. I felt the mist in the air. I followed the trail for a mile before I came to an intersection. I could keep going straight, or I could turn right. Still, the sign made no mention of the Loop Trail. I kept going straight.

Strava announced that I had run another mile. Was I now both lost and running further than I had intended? I felt exhilarated. I knew that I would eventually find my way back to the parking lot. I would either end up at the beach or at a parking lot, and from either, I knew my way back. Plus, I had my phone in my pocket if I really needed it.

Eventually, the trail opened up to an expansive green space, one I was very familiar with. I could see straight across Puget Sound to the snow-capped Olympic Mountains. On the sign, there was an arrow that was pointing in both directions. Next to the arrow, it said Loop Trail.

What I’m Reading

• Joyride by Susan Orlean. A fantastic memoir by a prolific writer. Orlean started her career at a small publisher in Portland and eventually made her way up the ranks as a staff writer at the New Yorker, publishing at Vogue and Rolling Stone along the way. She has written several books on completely different nonfiction topics, but this is the first in which she writes so extensively about herself. I loved hearing about what it was like working for the New Yorker in the 80s and 90s, about the life of a freelancer when magazines were in their heyday. It was inspiring to read about the twists and turns of her career and to understand the time it took for her to write her nonfiction books.

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Until next time,

Laura