My go to is, "This guy looks like they know where they're going."
And I just follow them. 6/10 I end up on a main road I recognise. Otherwise I get more lost and try not to look at them as they pull into their driveway after I just followed them the last 3 km of winding streets.
Funny enough, Augustus commissioned one of the first public use maps - a big engraved map of the Empire in Rome that people were allowed to copy down and spread. This is a 19th century reproduction of an earlier reproduction, but it's thought that this is the map in question.
Ah yes, the old "graph of landmarks" style of map. Highly underrated in my opinion, some people have a mental GPS but fuck me if I do. It's suggested sometimes that they didn't think of making the other kind, but given the fact that they did land surveys and had words for cardinal directions I doubt it. They just didn't see the use, and didn't make the connection with arithmetic and algebra until Descartes thought to add in a vertical axis.
One thing I've looked for that doesn't exist is a modern periplus with GPS coordinates of the landmarks included. It could be way more compact than a traditional atlas, but just as useful.
My wife gets nervous when I don't turn Google Maps on immediately.
"Babe, we're still in the neighborhood and it's 120 miles until I need directions."
She's not from America and the long distances astound and confuse her. Also, just figured out why she gets antsy about a turn coming up in 2 miles. She's still thinking in kilometers.
The benefit of using gmaps on long trips is it will alert you and reroute around traffic. So yeah you may not need directions until you get to your destination... but you may be stuck in traffic for hours because of a traffic accident you were not aware of.