Jim- be careful with air photos or satallite photos. Some are NOT correctly georeferenced and have spatial distortion. Google maps are pretty tight-lipped on the details of the image acqusition date and georeferencing. Google map overlays of roads and trails are just as prone to error as a UGSS topo map. Regardless of map or image - you NEED to know what datum it is using, date of data aquisition, level of horizontal and vertical accuracy. Overlay data is particularly prone to error because the overlay may have small distortions (mis-matches to the base map)that can create large errors over long distances.

I have used a map without compass for more than 20 years and do not get lost. I did use a compass learning how to read a map and for the first 25 years of backpacking. I would take a compass if I were in a region of thick forests or extensive flat country (I usually do not backpack in this kind of environment). For beginners a compass is definitely useful. But after many years with a compass I found myself looking at it less and less until it occurred to me I had not pulled it out of my pack in five years!

But, you really need to pay attention and read the map often. I carry the map in a pocket or even in my hand and look at it as often as every few minutes. "Reading" a map is really about getting a feel of the land. The map is an aid. You have to create a 3-d picture in your mind. Reading a topo map forces you to create that mind's picture; looking at an arrow on a GPS does not. A lot of topographical subtleties do not show up on a topo map (or GPS).

I am more of a "visual-pictorial" map reader than "mathamatical" map reader. The contours just seem to pop out in my mind and I really do not even feel I am looking at lines. I know of people (my husband for example) who never see contours this way - to him thay have always remaind confusing squiggly lines.