Here’s a Way to Figure Out How Far You Are from Everything on Earth

Up to now, the best way I knew to compare how far San Diego was from other points on earth was to play around with a string and my globe. But I just discovered a much cooler tool: the Google Maps Distance Calculator. It took me only a few minutes to learn how to use it, but then I had to force myself to break away.

I found it great fun, for example, to figure out what’s the farthest point I’ve traveled from home (and by that I mean my own personal house; the Calculator lets you pinpoint locations that precisely.) The winner for me was Amman, Jordan (7,641 miles), but after my trip to South Africa next year, I’ll vault to the over-10,000-mile club when I visit Durban (10,572 miles). That made me wonder what’s the farthest land-based point anywhere on Earth from San Diego. Using the Calculator leads me to believe it’s probably the tiny islands of Ile Amsterdam or Ile St. Paul southeast of the only slightly larger island country of Mauritius. The farthest place I can imagine ever getting to is Madagascar (11,105 miles from my front door to the capital of Antananarivo).

At the other end of the cartographic spectrum, the Calculator allows you to figure out the distance you cover in favorite walks. For example, to walk from the San Diego Maritime Museum to Seaport Village is precisely .887 miles (I’ve wondered.)