Map shows travel times around the world more than a century ago

It is easy to complain about delayed flights and mishandled luggage, but be glad we've reached an age of travel where those are your biggest concerns. The Economist's Intelligent Life recently unearthed a historic, isochronic map originally published by John G. Bartholomew in "An Atlas of Economic Geography" in 1914. The map shows how long it took to reach various points around the globe from London (for example, it apparently took five to 10 days to reach the Eastern U.S. and 10 to 20 to reach the western half of the country).

As Intelligent Life explains it, an isochronic map features lines that join points accessible within the same amount of time. Author Simon Willis points out that some distances are faster to reach than others despite being a longer distance, largely because extensive railway networks in parts of Europe, Asia, and North America that reduced travel time.

RWV discovered another map (above) dating back to 1881. The map, by Francis Galton, was published in the "Proceedings of the Royal Geographic Society," and also shows travel times from London to various parts of the globe. As Galton's version shows, only 33 years before Bartholomew made his map, it took much longer to cross the Atlantic and reach the U.S.

Traveling between London and North Africa took up to 10 days (barely a three hour flight today), but if you wanted to press just a bit further into the Sahara Desert region of North Africa, travel times jumped to more than 40 days. From London to the Brazilian coastline near Rio de Janeiro could take as many as 20 days — and that's if you weren't hassled by pirates, caught in a ferocious storm, or killed by dysentery first.

Think about these maps the next time you catch yourself complaining about a long-haul flight. They certainly make this modern day isochronic map showing train times across Europe seem more than palatable.