They are pretty dry and boring, and it's math, and geometry. Ugh.

But, in real life there's another way... I call it "Remembering"

The old adage "You seen one tree you seen them all" is true for a lot of people, and most of them will get lost in a forest pretty fast. In the old days an Ozarker might give directions something like, "Follow this road. After it crosses the creek the Yocum's place is in third hollow on the left."

If you were an Ozarker that's everything you needed to know and all you had to remember. The actual distance didn't really didn't matter much, nor did the twists and turns the road and hollows might take. That's still pretty much how I bushwhack here.

To be able to do this you have to pay attention, but you can learn it on a trail just as easy as bushwhacking. Consider, on a trail here you might walk by a dozen hollows on one side of a creek or ridge and never even think about them because you don't really have to. If you had paid attention, and counted them as you went, you could pull out a topo map showing that trail and pinpoint your location on it without a compass or a GPS. The same is true if you're bushwhacking, though it takes a little faith to believe it at first.

In the West, the topography is bigger, but the same thing applies. If you apply it on both the large and small scale, you can learn to bushwhack like Wondering_Daisy and wander around for months and always know where you are to a pretty fine point.

If you've got a topo map and a compass and some mountains, learning how to triangulate your position is easy, and that's a skill worth practicing while your out backpacking, and I think everyone should now and then. I pretty much eyeball it now, but that works pretty good too with practice.

Getting a GPS helped me a lot because it gave me confirmation that I knew where I was, and with that I learned I alway did know. When I first got one I carried it with me and watched it while I hiked. It didn't take long for me to realize I didn't like that. Now I use them to record a track more than anything, and to set waypoints for spots that are interesting. I like my printed topo maps a lot more, and use them with the GPS as a cross reference, if I use it.

Navigation in large flatlands and at sea is entirely different. I've studied it a bit, but never practiced it. I've always been fixated on exploring rivers, creeks, and mountains. But I would love to get a sextant and fiddle with it enough to locate myself (even somewhat) with it. I'm afraid all I'd prove though is that those who use them are a lot better at math than I and that I don't have the tenacity to learn it.