
Isochronic Map shows how long it took to travel the world in 1914 (2015) - BafS
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/What-travelling-was-like-100-years-ago/
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taigeair
Rome2rio did a new version for 2016 in the same style, which is juxtaposed to
the 1914 version to show how travel times have changed. It was big on Reddit a
couple years ago:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/3ztqqr/a_2...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/3ztqqr/a_2016_version_of_the_1914_isochronic_londonworld/)

Since Rome2rio had no interest in selling it, I licensed it and have it for
sale on my website: [https://www.wellingtonstravel.com/isochronic-
map.html](https://www.wellingtonstravel.com/isochronic-map.html)

I'd love to sell the original one too but couldn't determine the copyright
owner and get a high quality version of it.

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mc32
It's a bit unexpected to see the interior of the Amazon region is more
accessible than the interior of Australia or the northern regions of Alaska.
My guess is that commerce is driving exploration/exploitation of the interior
of the Amazon (more than those other places).

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ascar
My guess would be a combination of the relative closeness of the next airport
to any given point in the Amazonas region and the flight time from London to
South America being about 10 hours shorter than to Australia due to 5km less
distance and favorable flight direction regarding the earth's rotation.

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kiriakasis
> favorable flight direction regarding the earth's rotation.

is the rotation a direct factor or are you referring to high altitude winds?

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ascar
I was referring to the high altitude winds that are highly affected by the
coriolis force.

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mncharity
An isochronic map of the Roman Empire:
[http://orbis.stanford.edu/](http://orbis.stanford.edu/) (path: "About" popup
> "Gallery") Sigh.

~~~
interfixus
"ORBIS is designed for modern browsers and uses technology that works best in
Chrome or Safari. If you want to try ORBIS in your unsupported browser, click
here"

Double sigh, me & my Firefox.

~~~
hvidgaard
What they meant to write was:

"ORBIS has only been tested in Chrome and Safari. If you want to try ORBIS in
your browser we didn't want to allocate ressources to support, click here"

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simonh
When I was a kid in Britain in the 70s "Outer Mongolia" was slang for "the
furthest corner of the Earth", and there it is one of the places with the
longest travel time from Britain a few generations before. it's interesting
how slang and preconceptions get fossilised in children's vernacular.

My wife is from the Chinese regions of Inner Mongolia, which I didn't even
know existed until I met her. It looks like her hometown would actually have
been harder to reach than Mongolia itself!

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bryanrasmussen
I think logically speaking any point within a region can only be as easy to
reach as the region itself, and depending how you travel and how you define
'reaching the region' most probably will be required to be harder to reach
than the region itself.

That said it must be cool being married to someone from the farthest corner of
the earth. Congratulation.

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jpatokal
Interesting to see how both the Suez Canal and the Trans-Siberian Railway
"distort" the map: without them travel to eg India or the Far East would have
been much slower.

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mci
A curated collection of isochrone maps can be found here:
[https://alternativetransport.wordpress.com/category/isochron...](https://alternativetransport.wordpress.com/category/isochrone-
maps/)

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vbezhenar
I wonder how visa availability affected travel time in 1914 and 2015. I know
that I'd like to travel in Europe, but getting visa is very burdensome and
unreliable, so I'm just traveling elsewhere. World where you could ride
anywhere and settle there without any paperwork sounds like a miracle we lost.

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ido
What nationality are you? Most first world countries can get an automatic 3
months tourist visa to the EU upon landing.

I am also surprised that any nationality (except Americans) would have an
easier time getting a US visa than an EU one!

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jablan
There's no such thing as EU visa. You probably refer to Schengen. Here's a
list of countries requiring a visa to visit Schengen zone:

[https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/who-needs-schengen-
visa/](https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/who-needs-schengen-visa/)

Among the people needing visa are citizens of India, China and Russia. I don't
know which world you count them in, but that's helluva lots of people.

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labster
Has anyone seen a map like this for a fictional world? I'd love to see the
Isochronics of Narnia.

