Tomorrow I will be the farthest away from home since 2019.

Actually, it is really not that far away compared to places I have been in the past.

I am going to Milpitas tomorrow to visit a warehouse where we have some instruments stored. It is only about 50 miles away, but I have not been father than 30 miles from home since I got back from Germany in December 2019.

This has me thinking of a post I wrote back in 2018 about the farthest I have been from home.

The post was prompted by a post from a friend who I had been to Antarctica with. Was that the farthest I had been from home?

I decided to look at the farthest point from two different places. First I looked to see what place I have been to is the farthest from where I was born.

I used the distance feature in Google Maps and found that Singapore at about 9,300 miles was the farthest.

Another place that was far from my birthplace was Johannesburg, South Africa where I will be heading to next weekend.

I then decided to see what the farthest place is that I have been to from where I currently live. I decided to try Antarctica first and Paradise Bay which was the farthest south we went was about 7,750 miles away.

Since Singapore was the farthest from my birth place I checked it next. I now live only 8,500 miles away from Singapore. You can see that the distance line is coming from a different angle in the screen shot of the map.

I then thought of other far places. Is Australia farther away?

No, Sydney is just under 7,500 miles away. It is just a few hundred miles closer than where I was in Antarctica.

I have been to Bengaluru or Bangalore India a few times. Is it the farthest I have been from home?

It is a little more than 8,700 miles away so a bit farther than Singapore.

How about the Cape of Good Hope near Cape Town, South Africa? It is the farthest south I had been in Africa.

It is about 10,200 miles away from home.

I then checked Johannesburg and found that it was about 10,500 miles away. I have been in Pretoria, but it is just a bit closer so somewhere in the Johannesburg area is the farthest I have been from home.

Here you can see the distance on the map. Why is the line between the two points not a straight line? Of course it is because the world is round and not flat.

Is it possible for me to get farther from home?

I decided to find out where the antipode for home was. This is the place that is exactly on the opposite side of the globe. No matter where you live, your antipode is a little over 12,400 miles away. For me, the antipode is in the Indian Ocean.

The farthest away from home on land would be Port aux Frances (~11,400 miles), the Reunion Islands (~ 11,250 miles) or Mauritius (~11,200 miles). So, I could get another 900 miles farther away from home 🙂

What is the farthest you have been from home?

Steven