Looking for a Fun/Interesting "Chart/Table of Distances"

February 4, 2010 10:29 AM

I'm looking for a fun chart/table of distances (Heights, Lengths) to incorporate into a walking for wellness program.

I am converting steps taken to approximate miles and would like to present interesting facts such as "You've walked 5000 steps! That's the equivalent of walking from 'x' city/landmark to 'y' city/landmark.", or "climbing 'x' monument 'y' time over!".

I know I could laboriously collect this info by googling various distances/monuments, etc... but I was hoping there was already one in existence somewhere that I could borrow from.

Thanks in advance.

posted by lyam to health & fitness (7 answers total)

Maybe this one from Wikipedia?

List of tallest buildings and structures in the world

If you scroll down to the charts area, you can sort them by various criteria, including the height (in meters or feet).
posted by SuperSquirrel at 10:57 AM on February 4, 2010

Awesome, thanks!
posted by lyam at 11:20 AM on February 4, 2010

A couple of related questions that might provide ideas or tools:

Mapping of imaginary trips
Online workout journals

I remember these because they both mention the Lord of the Rings-themed "walk to Rivendell" idea.
posted by nanojath at 1:50 PM on February 4, 2010

If you want to fill out the upper end of the chart, Wolfram Alpha will convert distances to roughly equivalent forms. For instance, 24,000 ft is equal to about 80% the height of Mt. Everest or two-thirds the depth of the deepest part of the ocean, and sound would take 21 seconds to travel that far.

It will also convert steps to miles to equivalent distances in one operation; your example of 5,000 steps is equal to 1.184 miles, or 24 standard Manhattan city blocks.
posted by Rhaomi at 2:58 PM on February 4, 2010

The left hand column of the InfoChimps List of Scale Landmarks is a list of distances. They span far more orders of magnitude than are relevant for a walking programme, but it's a useful list.
posted by James Scott-Brown at 10:26 AM on February 5, 2010

Great additions, thanks! I'm even interested in relatively large scales as we will be calculating totals of all who are tracking, possibly over the span of years.
posted by lyam at 6:19 PM on February 6, 2010

Well, then, according to Wikipedia, the distance to the moon from earth "averages about 384,467 kilometers (238,897 miles)."

Good luck!
posted by SuperSquirrel at 6:27 PM on February 6, 2010