Friday, March 30, 2007

Transatlantic with Google Maps

Ever wondered what Google maps would do if your route spanned water bodies. That's what we precisely did today and discovered some amusing things. We entered Cleveland,OH to London,UK and Google Maps did plot us a route across the Atlantic.

And how exactly were we supposed to cross the Atlantic. SWIM ...LOL
And how long was this going to take ... Only 29 days 17 hours.

Afer a hearty laugh, we sat down to dig a little deeper. It seemed to work only from a destination in US to select destinations in Europe across the Atlantic. We tried South America, Europe, Australia, Asia with no luck. Another thing we observed was, a transatlantic "swim" would always take you along the same path in the Atlantic as shown by points 36 and 38, irrespective of the source and destination. Thats how the algorithm seems to work.

This means a traveler from Miami,FL to London,UK will have to go to Newyork, swim across to France and then cross the English Channel. haaa haaa.. God help the guy !

BTW, have your swimsuit ready to plunge into the frigid, shark infested Atlantic waters with Google Maps.

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