I'm glad you asked about pulling up the map because there have been no rules established for either this or Wordle. You play however you want to, and I'm not going to ask you if you used what might be considered trickery. There's nothing at stake here but at the same time, just for consistent levels of success between participants, it wouldn't hurt to say what is considered 'cheating'.
So since you asked, the way I play is to not ever pull up a map or any other aid. I take full advantage of the distance cues though. Very often when faced with a completely unfamiliar country, I'll just pick a starting point, a country that is well situated in my mind, and start closing in from there. That might lead you to the right country which you then recognize, but if not at least it might get you to where you can make a better guess.
This is educational. If you want to go to a map, that might be a better way of locking a country in place in your mind. I can see nothing wrong with that. There have been plenty times that I go to a map after I've bombed out, just to see where stuff is for general purposes.
I think I do fairly well with continental countries (Africa maybe not so much). Those islands though, they do me in as often as not. Same strategy though. If I think I'm dealing with the Caribbean, e.g., I might take Barbados as a starting point because I know about where it is. If it ends up being elsewhere, I still have a useful starting point to work from.
I know I'm telling you what you already know, but that's what you get for asking me. Har har.