I would personally just treat whatever direction I'm facing at the time as North and go from there.

Just walk up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, then jump and shoot someone.

If you're at the pole, just walk due south.

There's no idiom for which way the moon rises and sets 🤷🏻‍♂️.

stuck somewhere where the sun doesn't set for like a month

Do... Do I wait?

Lol this guy over here using the stars to navigate.

You should probably mention which regions this advice is limited to, to avoid confusing people from outside those regions who see your advice and misapply it.

Boyle is that you?

No I said geese

I think it depends on how you hold it.

That one's for chess moves.

Not trying to be facetious, but you just kind of do it. I think it might be something that you just subconsciously keep track of once you really become aware of it. I remember it seeming like magic until I was maybe 15 or so, and then I had landmarks for each direction in my mental map and could figure things out in reference to them. After a bit of that, I could mostly stay oriented when traveling by land, and now it's not an issue even when I fly somewhere. I went to England for the first time last year, and I had the cardinal directions sorted probably by the time I'd walked from the train to my hotel.

Once you've got it down, you just sort of do it on autopilot.

I think it helps that I've been a pilot since I was a teenager. Spend some time where you can see a third of a state at a time you'll just develop this sense. You get a bigger picture of how things are oriented relative to each other that's sort of like, wherever you are in your home, you can probably work out which way the road outside goes, likely parallel to one of your walls. I can do that over much greater distances. If you've ever stood in the middle of a parking lot in a strip mall, and gone "the highway is over there, the Belk is over there, the J.C. Penney is that way, the furniture store is down on that end and I know the Red Lobster is just on the other side of it though I can't see it from here," I can do that with the major cities in my state.

Orienting yourself if you've gotten turned around is another habit to build up. Yes "the afternoon sun is in the West" but also if you're in the Northern hemisphere, your shadow will point North at noon. I also have a pretty good picture of the highway system in my head and can orient myself by knowing the general heading of a nearby highway.

From both my time as a pilot and as an amateur radio operator I'm familiar with the various towers across the state. I've used those to work out my approximate location and heading both in the air and on the ground. In medium sized cities often there's a city center with a few tall buildings that can be seen for several miles around, orienting yourself to them can help you develop a sense of direction. I've started doing that almost subconsciously.

Now if I were to wake up in a cave my gyros would be tumbled until I managed to get out. I don't have an actual built-in compass. But it wouldn't take me long to orient myself seeing how the daylight hit the cave entrance.

You track you direction throughout the day. My road runs east/west. If i leave my house and turn left, I'm going west, turn right im going east, I keep this in mind as often as I can.

I also know my general area pretty well and what direction each town/city is in relative to my home, which helps me find my direction if i lost it. I also like to remember which direction each major intersection goes as that helps me keep track as well.

While I'm sure there is learned effort, I do feel like there is something inside my brain that just has a connection to north somehow. Kind of like how ducks and geese know which way to travel when migrating. I can't really explain it well.

I have a similar experience when I go a city in my state - St. Paul. If I go downtown for any reason, I always feel a bit uneasy walking about and I didn't know why for the longest time. I finally found out that the streets in the downtown aren't laid out on the cardinal points-- They were laid out on a slight bias due to being right up against the Mississippi river. And that makes me a little uncomfortable when looking down a block of buildings or from one street to the next at an intersection. It's always a little bit wonky feeling.

Which one is the cover? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1wc-AQJ2MYo

Listen to reason, reason is calling on the same handy device every man and his dog has which will provide a north oriented aerial view of the area in question and even a compass display if the map isn't enough to orient yourself.

That's was also what my fifth grade teacher taught us. But we got a new teacher shortly afterwards.

But you have to memorize if that's CW or CCW. I'd forget.

If you don't specify the point of reference, I will use the world's west as it's conceived. if not, say "your left" or something.

So does Android. This phone is old and it's on the edge menu (Samsung).

No data, no map.

GPS can give your coordinates, but that’s pointless unless you walk a bit and translate the direction.

Compass uses most of its power for the screen.

Excellent! I tried a couple trail apps for iPhone without any luck - they didn’t have local trails or cost too much for how occasionally I’d use it. Lately I have been doing short local hikes on well marked trails, so it’s not really a need

Yeah I know when I have time to think about it.

It's just when people say: 'go left here' or me throng to indicate direction in a split second that my change of getting it right reduced to 50%. My brain doesn't grok that left right isn't absolute but related to orientation.

Like I said repeatedly. If I get to think about it I know what side is what. It's only in the moment when I falter

Hmm

Looked it up and you might be right. But believing you at face value would also be the same fault that lead to to this myth's spread.

What about the videos recorded in Ecuador, where the same reservoir is drained on both sides of the equator and the water spins in different directions?

Edited to add the link since other users asked for it down in the replies: https://youtu.be/4IIVfoDuVIw

Edit2: check the replies below, the video is good at debunking this. But it's not super easy to notice