I had to laugh out loud when I read this, because it's partially true. I can imagine what a topo map of florida looks like, just one giant contour line around the entire state <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I took a road trip over there a little while ago, I remember passing these "observation towers" which were basically a two or three story building. It felt like you could see the entire state of florida from the top of one of those. I never got a chance to go to the northern part of the state, but the southern half is as flat as....well, i can't think of a good analogy, cuz whenever I need to describe something extremely flat, I use Florida as the analogy. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

The 6 P's: "Proper Planning Prevents [censored] Poor Performance"

It is never a bad or wasted idea to carry a topo map for the area(s) that you are going to be operating in!

Sounds like you have never been to Florida.

Okay, now that I am not in a classroom waiting for my students to finish a quiz let me expand on a few things.

First, as many have intimated, no tool is worth a damn if you do not know how to use it. These days, it seems that land navagation is the lost skill of the outdoors. Inexpensive GPS seem to be one of the last nails in Land Navigation's coffin. Learn it navigate without a GPS, you can find courses across the country but you can get started with a good book like Be Expert with Map and Compass by Bjorn Hjellstorm and practicing alot. Once you are good at finding your way without electronics, you can add a GPS if you feel like it for added safety. I like to mark my location with my GPS and then turn it off so that I have the batteries to find my way back should I need to. Another thing to not forget is at least one set of spare batteries for each device that uses them.

If you can, buy some extra materials to build fires and shelters with and practice with these items.

Assumeing that you can somehow find a way to tramp through the vine encrusted palm meadows infested dry spits of sand while covered in bannana spiders webs over the clothes your wearing over every inch of your body so that a swarm of the second place choice for the Florida State Bird and Insect (The Mosquito) doesn't carry you off and suck you dry, stoping every three steps to pick the sand burrs out of your pant legs and shoes, wishing someone would turn off the sauna and praying that wasn't lightning you just heard just ahead.. You could use a topo map in Florida to avoid the real swampy areas moveing cross country, as well as move to the small inland lakes and streamlets and such for fresh water to purify.. or avoid major roads if that floats your boat..

No problem..
By the way, thats not the way Florida truely is; It truely is a beautiful place if you know where to look.. that was just my first impression after I moved here from the high deserts of Southern California near the northern side of the Angeles National Forest in Palmdale, 11 years ago.

RTFM- if I had a dollar for every tech call I've had that came down to reading the directions, I'd be rich. The same applies to any kind of gear- at least the items is the PSP are hard to use wrong, and there are directions, but in the field is not the time to find out you have the the one-in-a-million oops from AMK, or that you can't use your gear.

And Night raises a good point- don't plan on being peak when you need this. I always assume that I'm going to be soaking wet in zero-ish temperatures with a good wind going, along with either a mild concussion, a broken arm, knee damage, or any combination of the three to go along with my hypothermia. :P

I have never been to Florida, and after your vivid description probably never will, but I have been in the jungles of Central America, and sometimes the hardest thing in using a topo is finding landmarks to check your location against. Given your description, how does one actually use a topo in Fla? Count steps (or canoe paddle thrusts), or something else???

I've never tried it, but I don't see why normal methods wouldn't work.. its mostly the large patches of palm meadows that would be your problems, but the Seminoles and other natives moved around well enough.
North eastern Florida is almost a whole different biome then even the rest of the state, we have plants and animals here that don't go further south, and plants and animals from further south that can't live much further north..
The bad thing about this area is that a lot of the land was/is owned by the paper mills in the area, which plant pines that they harvest for paper products so half the time your driveing along giant corn rows of pine trees..
It is flat though, when I first moved here I 'suffered' from what I called 'elevation deprivation', symptoms included but were not limited to climbing to the rooftops of tall buildings and sitting for hours saying to yourself 'wow, there is a horizon', driveing over tall bridges several times in a row just so that you can see, for the 15th time, that your not driveing around in an endless circle of trees, and puting together a notebook with clipings of 'elevated' places out of magazines, so that you know there are real places like you remember.
*Points to Izzy* He would know better then I would about how to use a topo map though...

Thanks to both of you. It sounds like something you would have to experience to really understand and be profecient with. As are most of the important skills. I'll take more hills and mtns myself...