Then there is the old fashioned way. With an ASW19, 100 hours, a
license, a bronze badge (which means you know how to thermal) and
power experience (which means you know how to navigate and use
airspace)... just go! All of the rest of us got going in cross country
by simply looking at a map, picking a simple course to some nearby
airports, and going. Sure, it was slow the first time.

Is there nobody flying XC at your club to talk to? Just ask for some
advice on the simplest triangle. If not, pick a better club!

Instruction, camps, and contests will all be more fruitful once you've
been out a few times. You have to go do it, get some sense of visual
navigation and thermaling and gliding, before you can really benefit
from camps and such. The camps will tell you to go faster, to stop
taking every thermal. You can't really take that advice until you've
been out a few times. Go when you're at a plateau.

You really only get good at cross country by going every weekend. And
it really is a self-taught exercise. A little instruction here and
there can help a lot, but 99% of learning to fly cross country is,
read all the material on the ground, then go try it out in the air. By
yourself.

John Cochrane