Grab a Map and a Compass and Try Orienteering

Finding your way around the woods can have some surprising benefits for your brain

Freda Kreier

Updated December 03, 2024

Three men hiking with hiking poles and looking at a map

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Hiking is a popular pastime for nature lovers. One way to take it up a notch and add some extra adventure is to go orienteering — a sport in which participants navigate around a pre-set course using nothing but a map and a compass.

As orienteering’s popularity blossoms, a small but growing number of studies suggest that exercising navigation skills may help improve memory and learning in people of all ages.

“Humans evolved to be very active people. They had to remember locations to hunt and gather and find food,” says Emma Waddington, a kinesiologist and research assistant at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. By combining exercise, time in nature, and focused thinking, orienteering may help our mind maintain and build neural connections in ways that other sports don’t, she says.

Those benefits appear to stack up for older adults. Ray Kitowski, a 72-year-old retiree from Ontario, first picked up the sport in his mid-40s after visiting a local orienteering club. “That first experience with a map in my hand and I was hooked,” he recalls.

Today, he says that orienteering helps him stay grounded when solving big problems, like temporarily getting lost on a course he’s exploring.

“When you’re on an orienteering course, you’re constantly thinking, constantly using your brain,” he says. “I’d be surprised if it didn’t have a benefit.”

Meanwhile, Ian Shields, 74, a member of a Raleigh, N.C., orienteering club, agrees that the sport “keeps your brain working.”

“I’m certainly benefiting from it, because I actually get out and do something,” he told Time magazine, explaining that although he’s lost some of his vision since first taking up the activity a decade ago, he simply uses a larger map.

Indeed, in a recent randomized controlled trial in Brazil, 90 people ages 60 and over joined either a hiking or orienteering group, or served as controls for 24 weeks. Participants were then asked to do a series of cognitive tests, such as counting backwards and answering test questions. People who orienteered outperformed both the hiking group and those who didn’t participate in either activity, as reported in 2024 in Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics. 

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Waddington has witnessed some of these potential benefits firsthand while attending orienteering events. As well as being a research scientist, Waddington is also a passionate participant in the sport. She competes on the Canadian National Team. Waddington, Kitowski and Shields all say they’ve attended events that included participants over the age of 90.

After observing these older individuals enjoying the activity, Waddington asked herself, “What are these people doing differently that allows them at this very old age to still be out there?”

In 2023, Waddington surveyed 158 adults between ages 18 and 87 about their memory. About 70 percent were orienteers; the rest were physically active people who did not orienteer. In a 2023 report published in PLOS ONE, Waddington and Jennifer Heisz, who directs the NeuroFit lab at McMaster, noted that respondents with orienteering experience reported better spatial navigation, a fundamental cognitive skill.

Orienteering doesn’t even have to be done regularly in order to see some of its benefits. In Waddington’s follow-up study reported in 2024 in PLOS ONE, 63 young adults with no orienteering experience displayed better spatial memory — and higher concentrations of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a brain chemical that promotes the growth and maintenance of brain cells — after just a single orienteering session.

This could mean good things for aging brains: One of the areas of the brain most impacted by aging is the hippocampus, which is involved in memory and learning, two important things for spatial navigation. Part of orienteering’s benefits may draw from the fact that exercise is a good way to help the brain forge new neural connections, Waddington says. By exercising both brain and body, orienteering may offer an edge over other physical activities, such as walking.

Interested in trying out orienteering? Kitowski recommends looking up local groups and signing up for a low-key event. Most events are split into skill level and age groups. For those worried about getting lost, Waddington says that there are starter courses with established trails, so newcomers can concentrate on building skills.

Community is also one of the built-in benefits of orienteering. “We do the sport for the strong physical and mental aspects of it. I think there’s also a strong social component as well,” says Kitowski. In his experience, people will gather after races to compare notes and watch their results trickle in.

Exercising the “orienteering” part of the brain doesn’t just have to happen on event day. Turning off GPS and using a map to get around town can help work spatial memory, as well.

“Small steps, even just exploring a new area, can get you practicing navigation skills,” Waddington says.

Search for local events, resources and groups online or at Orienteering USA.