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Comment by consumer451 | Hacker News Reader

A very different scale, but this reminded of the Green Tortoise which was an American, mostly West Coast affair that once ranged from Alaska to Belize.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Tortoise

edit: oh wow. It still runs!

http://www.greentortoise.com/

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Huh. I've seen that hostel in downtown Seattle for years now but never knew the story behind the brand.

> Green Tortoise Adventure Travel is an American long-distance tour bus company

> is

I usually find Wikipedia to be quite accurate when it comes to telling whether something is still operational/active or not, especially when it comes to businesses (among other things).

> A very different scale

Anchorage to Belize: 5777 miles

London to Kolkata: 5695 miles

I actually can't find any evidence that there ever existed a direct Anchorage-Belize trip. The parent comment implies that the company merely offered routes that extended to these destinations, but not necessarily as a single trip.

That is indeed what I was trying to imply. Although, as someone who grew up on the West Coast, I have to say that similarity in distance is still a bit surprising to me.

Which of the two distances would you have guessed is further?

Across Eurasia. There might be some cultural/imagination thing going on. I have driven from British Columbia to Tijuana. I cannot even imagine how that would be across Eurasia.

Right! In my mind the American feels “obviously” further mainly due to how insanely far Anchorage is from, well, everywhere.

How did you compute the distances? Geodesic?

Google Maps.

One of them is the walking distance, the other the driving distance, because the other estimates hung. But they both follow roads.

Most of Anchorage to Belize would be within two or three countries: USA, Canada and Mexico, and two main official languages English and Spanish. (Obviously numerous indigenous minority languages.) London to Calcutta would have been much more diverse, but even within the Indian leg you would encountered more languages...

Many years ago it was a great service to get to BM cheaply.

2019 was their last year.

BM?

Burning Man, accoridng to the article they switched to "adventure camping trips" in 2001

I took that once from SF to NYC when in my twenties. Definitely recommend.

I did too - did the SF back to NYC leg that goes the north route as well. Amazing experience. I was only 19 at the time. My favorite memory is that on the westbound leg we met up with the eastbound one in (I think) Yellowstone and while parking the buses they managed to slowly crash in to each other (just a dent, nothing serious). I liked the fact they both started from separate coasts and ending up colliding.

Can I ask what year that was in? Several people in here seem to be intimately familiar with this company, but it's my first time hearing about it, despite me being quite interested in travel and all sorts of weird transit methods. It made me wonder if everyone here used them when they were at their peak many decades ago, or if this varied.

1989. I saw a paper flyer in the New York Public Library and turned up a few days later at the bus station on impulse. It was basically a moving commune, where you slept on flat boards, cooked together and moved glacially slowly towards the destination. The NY -> SF went south via FL, TX etc. It was mainly young people not actually from the US, Europe, Australia etc.

I did similar as brit tourist. It was about a week from Boston to SF.

1997 for me.

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