Radius maps for travel plans?

[sengsational]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FIREmenow That original site has another link at the top left called "How far can I travel?" With this one, you can put in a time and driving speed and the circle will not really be a circle - click search and you can watch it draw a jagged driving radius for you. How Far Can I Travel?

Wow, that's one of the world's problems that someone already solved. I can validate that it's mostly a circle, but a little bit squashed at the mountains.

[Bigdawg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RunningBum Well, that radius map doesn't tell you that you can travel x miles to get anywhere in that circle unless you fly like a crow. Google and other maps manage to figure out travel time to destinations using the best route, so I'd think it's possible, though not at all easy, to be able to draw such a map of where you can get to in, say, 3 hours. The drawback would seem to be the computational time, to essentially calculate 3 hours by freeway or the fastest available roads, then figure out how far you can go from all the side roads off the freeway taking exits before that 3 hour mark. Easy is drawing a simple circle of x miles around a spot, but it's almost useless. For example, I can see a picnic day campground from my back deck, about a mile or so away, but it takes 20 minutes to drive there. Harder is distances by roads, but only somewhat useful since it would treat windy backroads same as freeways. Hardest is time by roads (and ideally other transportation) so you can see just how far you can get if you're willing to drive x hours. Personally I'm not looking for this tool, but just to say, "Yep, here's a circle, request satisfied, done." doesn't sound right to me.

Wow! Is life really that complicated? Going to the store to get a 1/2 G of milk. Should I go to store A, B or C? Store A is one mile closer than B. But, the milk section in store A is further from the front door than in store B. Also there is a hot dog vendor at store A that may distract me so I had better go to store B. But, store C has a smoother road to it and the milk there usually has an expiration date further out than the other 2 stores. I'm so confused. Maybe I'm just a simpleton.

So if you plan a three hour ride to the town 150 miles away but there is slight traffic that makes the trip 10 minutes longer you turn around at the three hour mark and return home?

[RunningBum]

If you don't live in the mountains you wouldn't understand, especially if you don't try.

The time and driving speed isn't the "end all" solution either, unless you believe that you can drive a hilly, twisted dirt road at the same speed as an interstate.

Like I said, it doesn't really matter to me. I pick out my destinations based on where I want to go, and then I look up the route time on google maps, and if it's too long, I may not go.

For most people, as a rough guide, it probably works fine. Not sure it's much better than just eye-balling a map.