Why Calculating Travel Distances is Essential for Trip Planning

Travel Distances

Even if travel distances were the first concern of map makers, the technologies we now have available allow us to calculate distances in miles, air miles, nautical miles, and kilometers. Travel distances are essential, particularly for trip or vacation planning, thus one can appreciate the fuel costs as well as the necessity of eventual stops on the way, and therefore alternative hotel bookings. The Internet is the richest resource for travel distances and calculators, although the traditional map systems provided by AAA and Rand McNally continue to stay in business. Moreover, the competition is made tighter with the services offered by Google Maps and MapQuest.

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Google applications are great for calculating travel distances, and it seems like they’ve kept their promise to dominate the web with the free services they offer to all searchers. For access to the Google Maps page, you need to have a regular free Google account; after the entrance of the points of origin and destination, the distance measurement tools will give you accurate and highly comprehensive data. Thus, other than the travel distance, you can also click other links in the menu that give access to info on gas prices, weather forecast, and nice sights to visit.

Program analysts

Program analysts point out that so far, Google has come up with the most user-friendly type of program for the calculation of travel distances. This online service is also widely used thanks to the fast way of accessing the information: type the place of origin, arrival point, and presenter. The screen will display not only a map and the travel distances, but indications for how to move around are available too. For the moment, MapQuest is preparing the release of a more comprehensive program that would compete with the giant Google on equal footing; this will most certainly trigger the introduction of other tools and functions to aid the web searcher even further.

Presently, time and space perception have changed radically, and the modern means of transportation reflect this change. The travel distances between Los Angeles and New York would thus be long by car or train, but short by plane. The relative part in the equation is not distance as such, but our perception of it in terms of time. People often tend to say: How long does it take to get to location X instead of How far is location X? For car travelers, distances are then appreciated in terms of costs too: gas, food, lodging, they all mean money. Hence, good trip planning means calculating travel distances too.