How to improve your sense of direction

Street took up the sport of orienteering at the age of nine. As his experiences suggest, childhood exposure shapes people's comfort and confidence with navigation. Kids having the opportunity to move independently around varied environments matters here. "Experiments with non-human animals suggest that passive motion is not that good because you don't basically pay attention," says Nora Newcombe, a psychology professor at Temple University in Philadelphia.
People who grew up outside cities, or in more spatially complex cities (think Prague rather than Chicago), also appear to be better able to navigate as adults. This is related to the distances travelled and the variety of areas traversed.