Hello fellow landnav folks. I am a hiker near the Appalachian mountains of the eastern USA.
I spent many years assiduously avoiding getting lost when hiking trails. Then I asked myself "well then what would I do if I really did get lost?". So I found a local orienteering club where we try quite hard to get lost, then think our way out of it. Sometimes people explicitly advise me to get lost...
I have come to love off-trail landnav in the process. As Lyle so rightly says, strong landnav skills free you to explore where you like.
I do most of my hiking solo and often in places new to me, so route planning and careful movement are important. I develop my custom maps with National Geographic TOPO, use both the Silva Type 54 prismatic and the Suunto global models (M3G and MC2G), along with a Garmin ForeTrex 401 satnav.
I look forward very much to learning from this community.