This has been in my head for two years now. When it is nearing the time to sell my car one day down the road, I have a plan of how I'm going to do it.
1. Post my car on craigslist in Argentina for something ridiculously cheap. Let's say $10. The only thing I ask is that the person arrange all the import paperwork (or I'll do it...just because.)
2. Drive my car to them from the U.S.
3. Deliver car to Argentina.
4. Fly home.
Somewhere in there is an incredible road trip through Mexico, Central America, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and into Argentina! I've done a bit of research on it, such as where I can take a ferry to avoid undesirable countries (Colombia.) As well, I've learned that there is not even one road that goes straight through because of the Darien Gap, a huge expanse of rainforest that no road crosses through.
A cool add-on to the trip would be to go to Chile and then take a real expensive boat cruise to Antarctica. South American would be my 6th continent I'd visited, so I figure I should tack on the 7th while I'm down that way.
Biggest worry, besides safety, is whether my car can make it those several thousand miles. But yeah, safety is a huge concern.
Darien gap below:
Showing posts with label Idea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Idea. Show all posts
February 4, 2010
December 10, 2009
Drive the coastline
An idea for a roadtrip:
Drive the perimeter of the United States, following the coastline to every extent possible. Take every road that borders the beach. (e.g. A1A in St. Augustine) Enter every subdivision if there is a full loop possible. No tracing back over on one way streets necessary.
I'm not sure if I'm more interested in driving it or just knowing now long this would be. It would be hard to map out on Google Maps. I'd have to drag a route onto every possible coastal street. Maybe someone who knew how to program could write a script to tell Google Maps to follow every street closest to the ocean.
Maybe make it easier, only take the closest state route to the ocean. With a day of work, I could probably could do that on my own with Google Maps.
Below is a sample of what I'm talking about. Here in a short stretch of coastline near Awendaw, South Carolina, I have found the route which follows the coastline to the extent possible.
Actually, there could be an easier way to do this without a computer script. One could take several samples of coastline followed like seen above, and then compare it to how long it would take to cover the same distance along the coastline on a nearby highway. By comparing the two, we could have a factor of the difference. In this case, the route that follows local roads close to the coastline is 12.4 miles long (above) and the one using a highway but covering the same space is 6.8 miles long (below).
The factor between them is 1.82. By sampling many portions of coastline around the country, and finding the difference between the nearest highway route and the coastline route, we could create an average factor for the country. Then, one would only need to find the closest highway route around the nation's perimeter, and factor it up to see how long a route along the coastline would take.
An even easier approximation would be just to see how long the interstate route is, and use the same factoring process described above. It would be faster, although less accurate.
Is this easier than a computer script? I don't know. I'm not a computer scientist. For me this would be easier. I like factors. It would be cool to do.
Drive the perimeter of the United States, following the coastline to every extent possible. Take every road that borders the beach. (e.g. A1A in St. Augustine) Enter every subdivision if there is a full loop possible. No tracing back over on one way streets necessary.
I'm not sure if I'm more interested in driving it or just knowing now long this would be. It would be hard to map out on Google Maps. I'd have to drag a route onto every possible coastal street. Maybe someone who knew how to program could write a script to tell Google Maps to follow every street closest to the ocean.
Maybe make it easier, only take the closest state route to the ocean. With a day of work, I could probably could do that on my own with Google Maps.
Below is a sample of what I'm talking about. Here in a short stretch of coastline near Awendaw, South Carolina, I have found the route which follows the coastline to the extent possible.
Actually, there could be an easier way to do this without a computer script. One could take several samples of coastline followed like seen above, and then compare it to how long it would take to cover the same distance along the coastline on a nearby highway. By comparing the two, we could have a factor of the difference. In this case, the route that follows local roads close to the coastline is 12.4 miles long (above) and the one using a highway but covering the same space is 6.8 miles long (below).
The factor between them is 1.82. By sampling many portions of coastline around the country, and finding the difference between the nearest highway route and the coastline route, we could create an average factor for the country. Then, one would only need to find the closest highway route around the nation's perimeter, and factor it up to see how long a route along the coastline would take.
An even easier approximation would be just to see how long the interstate route is, and use the same factoring process described above. It would be faster, although less accurate.
Is this easier than a computer script? I don't know. I'm not a computer scientist. For me this would be easier. I like factors. It would be cool to do.
August 5, 2009
Photographing Miles Across the USA
I almost had to drive across country for graduate school. I am an east coast resident and got accepted to a west coast graduate program, but ultimately decided to stay near the Atlantic.
I had the idea though, that if I went there, and had to make the drive across country, I would take a photograph every mile from my steering wheel. Could be a bit dangerous, but maybe I could somehow set up a system that didn't involve holding the camera. With all those photos, I thought it'd be good to turn them into a movie slideshow that one could watch and see the country fly by.
Before I posted this I ran a Google search to see if it'd been done. My idea couldn't be original, could it? Sure enough, Matt Frondorf has done it, but not exactly what I had intended. His videos look out the side window, not the windshield. So although you can see America pass by, I had envisioned the camera pointed forwards, so you'd feel like you were actually driving.
I had the idea though, that if I went there, and had to make the drive across country, I would take a photograph every mile from my steering wheel. Could be a bit dangerous, but maybe I could somehow set up a system that didn't involve holding the camera. With all those photos, I thought it'd be good to turn them into a movie slideshow that one could watch and see the country fly by.
Before I posted this I ran a Google search to see if it'd been done. My idea couldn't be original, could it? Sure enough, Matt Frondorf has done it, but not exactly what I had intended. His videos look out the side window, not the windshield. So although you can see America pass by, I had envisioned the camera pointed forwards, so you'd feel like you were actually driving.
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