Manfred Spitzer once wrote that he thinks there are two groups of people on this planet who really have good audio location capabilities. Blind people and conductors. Conductors because they need to be able to listen to a particular performer, to isolate them from the rest of the orchester. And blind people, because we use the ear to navigate the world.
Now, I actually use everything around me as a source of sound. Tapping with the cane is one of them. However, if I want to "scan" my environment, I usually make a clicking noise with my tongue.
But those are the a small part of the game. The rest of the noises I use come from outside. Just a small example, before I loose myself in thsi comment: I can hear poles and trees on the sidewalk. Not because they emit so much sound, but because they eat it up. If a car drives behind the pole along the street, I can actually hear the point where the external sound doesn't reach me, infering that there must be a pole or a tree. Echo location is not always about what you send. Its m6ore about you learning how the sound waves around you behave. Sometimes, but this is getting borderline esoteric, I can hear the materials involved. Walking towards a wooden wall sounds destinctly different from walking towards a concrete wall...