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A compass helps you navigate more precisely from point to point. This can be extremely important in the wilderness, where even small mistakes can result in you passing right by your destination without seeing it.

The needle on a compass aligns with an invisible magnetic field that covers the earth. This force field moves all the time, but the change happens slowly and predictably. 

The direction that a compass needle points is called magnetic north. But if a compass points north and since most maps are drawn "north up," why doesn't your compass always agree with your map? The fact is, you need to know where magnetic north is first so you can then find true north, because that's the north that's up on your maps. 

Anyone venturing off-highway should never leave home without a compass in hand.

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