Route Planning I

Now that we’re about nine months from the kickoff date of the Newport to Newport Transcontinental Pilgrimage, Rory Conlan and I have decided that it’s probably time to really get down to brass tacks and start a serious route planning effort. It seems a little silly that we’ve put things off this long, but in our defense, it’s a difficult challenge to agree to and plan for an effort that covers this much scope. We’re also discovering that we are both taking slightly different “philosophical” approaches to the pilgrimage. Getting these philosophical differences out on the table where we can discuss them is starting to be an important part of the planning process.

Now I don’t want to make it seem as if we’ve done no planning at all. Thanks to modern technology, Google Maps in particular, we’ve managed to lay out a route that is pretty detailed and appears to be executable on foot. This is the overview of the route.




One of the first planning factors that this overview route gives us is the total distance from Newport, RI to Newport, OR that we’ll have to cover to successfully complete the pilgrimage. This particular route chalks up at 3,109 miles. Now this is not the only route that we’ve plotted, and it’s interesting to note that for a journey this long the overall distance is pretty sensitive to route changes. The planning factor that we’ve settled on using is a route distance of 3,350 miles.

Once we figured out the overall distance, we begin to break down this distance into daily goals. Based on the walking I’ve done over the last several years in preparation for the pilgrimage, I think that an average daily target between twenty and thirty miles per day is what we’re going to have to accomplish in order to be successful.

Twenty miles per day for 3,350 miles yields a duration of about one hundred sixty eight days. Assuming a mid-March departure, this duration indicates we can expect to complete the pilgrimage sometime in late August or early September. If we’re able to average twenty four miles per day, we can complete the route in early August approximately twenty eight days earlier than the twenty mile per day average. An average daily progress of fifteen miles per day has us finishing the trek in late October with a mid-March start.

After defining these ranges of outcomes, the details of the walking philosophy really begin to become important. For instance, Rory and I both agree that we’re probably going to need a rest day every now and then to make sure we have the physical stamina to finish the pilgrimage. Where we haven’t reached an agreement yet is how we should plan for this short or no walking day.

We’ve basically agreed that we really ought to shoot for an average daily progress of no less than twenty miles per day. One of the factors associated with this decision is weather. Another one is money. We think that if we finish in about one hundred fifty days, the weather will remain reasonable and we won’t run completely out of money to support our families while we chase this adventure.

To average twenty miles per day, you’ve really got to plan the “down days” that both agree we’re going to need. Do you notionally schedule these down days every five days, every week, every ten days, or some other longer duration? It makes a real difference to your walking day targets. For instance, if you plan on one day off every five days of walking, you’re going to have to cover one hundred miles every five days to keep to the twenty mile per day average. That’s four twenty five mile days in a row. On the other hand if you’re willing to extend the rest day out to once a week, you only have to cover about twenty three and a half miles every walking day for six days in order to rest on the seventh. Extending the rest days out even further or deciding to walk a non-zero reduced day for your resting days also makes a big difference in execution.

Rory and I noodled on this dilemma for about forty minutes this morning, and we weren’t able to come to an agreement. It’s not like we’re arguing over these details, but coming to a conclusion for planning purposes is proving elusive.

This is one of many details we’re going to have to nail down over the coming nine months. Wish us luck because we’re going to need it.