253: John was lost in the woods

253: John was lost in the woods

From What Was That Like - True Stories. Real People. by Scott Johnson & Glassbox Media.

April 24, 2026 · 1h 1m · Episode 253

About this episode

John shares his harrowing experience of getting lost in the woods while hiking.

Technology is making it more and more difficult to get lost. Right now, I’m here in my home in Florida. I could pull out my phone, type in any random address in, say, Washington state – the other end of the country. Roughly 3,000 miles away. And within a few seconds, I would have turn by turn audio directions that would enable me to drive directly to that address. I know, GPS isn’t always perfect, but it’s really an amazing example of technology. And usually it works so smoothly that we just take it for granted. But what if you’re on foot, and your phone’s battery dies? Now you have nothing to tell you which direction to go, and you have no way to contact anyone for help. That’s what happened to John. John told this story on the podcast about 7 years ago in one of the very early episodes. He was hiking in an area that he was not familiar with. And a hike in the deep woods that was only supposed to be a few hours turned into days. Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here: https://WhatWasThatLike.com/253 Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai. Want to discuss this episode and other things with thousands of other WWTL listeners…

People in this episode

Host: Scott Johnson

Guest: John

Topics covered

  • hiking
  • survival
  • technology
  • lost in the woods
  • personal stories

Keywords

  • lost in the woods
  • hiking
  • survival story
  • technology
  • GPS

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: What Was That Like, Glassbox Media

Places: Florida, Washington state

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