Resources
The Basics
What Is Orienteering?
🗺️ Orienteering Maps
Orienteering maps show more detail than normal maps—like trails, vegetation, rocks, and hills—so you can find your way more accurately.
📄 Click here to see examples and download a 1-page map symbol guide
🧭 The Compass
You don’t need to buy a compass to get started! Most orienteers use one of two simple compass types. If you're new and don’t have one, no worries—our club has compasses you can borrow for free at check-in.
🔍 Learn about basic orienteering compasses
📟 What is Electronic Punching?
Instead of paper punches, we use small electronic devices called e-punches to track your progress. If you don’t have one, you can rent one when you sign up. Pick it up at check-in and return it at the finish.
📘 Learn how e-punching works
🏃♀️ What to Expect at Your First Event
Trying orienteering for the first time? Here’s a quick guide:
✅ Check In: Visit the welcome table to register, borrow gear if needed, and ask questions.
💬 Get a Quick Intro: We have a clinic for beginners 15 minutes before the event starts. We’ll explain how to read your map, use the compass, and navigate the course.
🚩 Start Your Adventure: Head to the start and begin finding checkpoints (also called "controls") using your map and compass.
🏁 Finish & Celebrate: Return your gear, get your results, and chat with fellow orienteers. You did it!
🎉 Remember: Everyone was a beginner once. Go at your own pace, have fun, and enjoy!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
About San Diego Orienteering
Orienteering Intro Videos
Event Guides
Competition Formats: learn about the various types of event formats
Volunteer Roles: learn about the various ways you can volunteer
Orienteering Education
Basic Skills
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Orienting the Map: The most important skill in orienteering is to orient your map to the terrain so it is in correct alignment with your surroundings. Essentially, you want to hold your map so that north on the map will correspond with north in the terrain.
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Reading the Map: Once you have oriented your map correctly, the next challenge is being able to relate the features on the map to what you see around you and then choose your direction.
Advanced Skills
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International Specifications for Orienteering Maps (2024): 44-page document explaining all aspects of reading and making Orienteering Maps. Chapter 3 covers all map symbols (pages 14-38)
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Control Description Symbols: Control descriptions help you gain additional clues to find the control feature you seek.
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International Specification for Control Descriptions (2024): 32-page document explaining all aspects of Control Descriptions
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Compass Bearings: When you first start out orienteering, most of your navigation will be on trail, and a compass is only needed to orient your map. However, once you start trying more challenging courses and venturing off-trail, you will need something to help you figure out the direction you should head.
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Pacing for Distance: Pacing or pace counting is a system for keeping track of distance travelled by foot through terrain.
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Understanding Contours: On advanced courses, control features could be the top of a hill, on a spur, or in a re-entrant. Contour lines are used to help provide a mental picture of the shape of the terrain to the orienteer.
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Route Choice: When determining the best route choice, you must understand the ways you can most efficiently travel across a variety of terrain.
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Attack Points: An attack point is an obvious feature near the control that can be easily located on the map and in the terrain and used as a jumping-off point to locate the control with careful navigation.
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Aiming Off: Your compass is your best tool to help keep your direction, but it is also good to learn additional strategies to mitigate possible limitations in your accuracy.
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Simplification: Simplification is a technique when the orienteer deliberately tries to focus on using big and/or obvious features to navigate by. This can help the orienteer choose routes they can navigate more quickly.
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Getting Faster: As you get more experience, there is a natural tendency to want to travel faster, but increasing your speed has some trade-offs. Going fast may mean you have less time to focus on the map, and then you are in danger of ‘overrunning’ the map.
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Error Recovery: All orienteers will make a navigation error. The difference between a novice and a very experienced orienteer is how quickly one can recover from such a mistake.