Google, either encouraging physical fitness or zero population growth, offers the above helpful suggestion when mapping the route from Chicago to London.
Click the image for a larger screenshot, or see here for the full directions and map of the route.
29 days, 22 hours to get there? Maybe I will fly after all.
Update: Google took it down. But the reason for the joke may be this:
Benoît Lecomte is a long distance swimmer from France born in 1967 who was the first man to swim across the Atlantic Ocean in 1998. He did this to raise money for cancer research as a tribute to his father. During his 3,716 mile journey in 73 days, he was followed by a support boat that had an electromagnetic field for 25 feet to ward off sharks. He did, however, still encounter sea turtles, dolphins, and jellyfish.
The feat, performed in 1998, took him 72 days, with 6-8 hours spent swimming each day in sessions of about two hours length. He was accompanied by associates in a boat, where he could rest and eat between each swimming period. The swim extended from Hyannis, Massachusetts to Quiberon, Brittany, France. He stopped for 1 week in the Azores, a Portuguese archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean. He achieved the goal in 72 days, and took lots of practice to get across. He had many fans once he reached land. Lecomte is now looking forward to swimming across the Pacific Ocean to the Phillipines.
The instructions on getting to London (or anywhere else in Europe for that matter) all involved getting into the water in Massachusetts, and getting out in Brittany. Mystery solved!
(via Gadling)
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December 31st, 1969 at 11:59 pm
http://tinyurl.com/ytducf LOL
March 29th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Hmm, I wonder if the 29 days is because it calculates your average speed swimming?
Shawn
March 29th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
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March 31st, 2007 at 9:18 pm
What’s equally hilarious is that evidently there’s only one possible route across the Atlantic, Boston to London. If you want directions from Newfoundland to Lisbon, you can’t swim direct, you have to drive 1000’s of kilometers just to get to Boston, and then drive (presumably in a different car) London to Portugal.
April 1st, 2007 at 7:30 am
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August 2nd, 2008 at 9:28 am
I did nsw newcastle to glendale (it did glendale, CA)
I need to kayak across the pacific ocean =D
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