How do I find a specific place in a city?

Question

I am having troubles finding some specific places in cities. I know, and that is a good example, that I should look for a general store to sell things but I am not able to find it when I am at the city.

I think my biggest problem is how to understand and use the bar (or map, i do not know how its called) that is on top of screen (which shows coordinates). That bar shows some icons that I cant understand.

I already looked for those tips on the internet and also a official beginners guide but i could not found anything.

So, how to find specific places in cities and what those icons means?

Answer 1

Make sure you are using the "local area map" for that town (you can toggle between this and the world map on the map screen). All the discovered shops/houses should be marked with names on that one, as opposed to the world map. The compass at the top of screen isn't very useful for finding shops, unless you have a quest objective there.

If you got that covered, you can usually make a good guess which houses contain shopkeepers by looking at the name of the house.

There's also a list of stores covered on http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Stores if you feel like looking them up.

Answer 2

On every shop in skyrim there is a sign hanging outside the door.

The picture corresponds to the shop ie.Bar=(you guessed it) tankard

Also note that you dont have to be in a shop or inn to be able to buy and sell items because wandering members of skrim will also trade with you. Some will also buy stolen items like members of the thieves guild or travellers you have completed errands for.