The instructor had me doing a whole bunch of airwork under the hood -- then told me it was time to head back home. Did not recognise anything; so, held heading for a minute, spotted a crescent shaped lake and there it was on the map.
In a glider, most of our navigation is from good lift to the next promising cloud in the general direction of where we'd like to go.
Once decent lift is found and circling in it, there's lots of time to find oneself on the map
If you have the gas, you can just circle while looking about.
Drawing a line on the map and staying on it reduces the problem to recognising the often cunningly concealed airport
