hello clinique_happy....
Trouble with going places while airborne is no road signs up there!
I learned in gliders (here she goes again!) where the first priority is just staying up, which means we spend a lot of time going around in circles in thermals. This makes it hard to get lost because you always are looking where you have been as well as where you may be intending to go.
The best way to navigate, in my opinion, is IFR - I follow roads. Or railroads.
A good trip is to follow the M40 from Wycombe Air Park to Oxford and back.
Or the M4 to Devises and back. This ancient method was the only one available to those women in the Air Transport, who delivered Spitfires etc from the factories to the active airfields.
And of course another splendid way to travel is to go by coastline. Why on earth do they insist in these contrived nav exercises to make the poor novice fly in straight lines?
Yes, study the map carefully before you go. Plan a sight seeing journey, keep it simple. We used to fly Bicester Didcot, but they kept knocking down the cooling towers....