DME is nice but not at all necessary. A little dead reckoning navigation is all you need. Compass, clock, and a guesstimate of the wind along with good land marks should get you to where you are going. And do not forget the good old NBD. You can get real fancy with that, ever heard of a 'double angle on the bow time distance check'. Probably not, guess I'm showing my age dredging up that one but it works.
Using VOR you can track a radial and your ground speed divided by time in tenths of an hour gives you distance.
