Location is a huge factor for us when considering where to live, particularly as it affects how long it takes to get to the places we go most often. This spreadsheet + macro allows you to quickly assess the convenience of each potential neighborhood you look at in terms of the number of minutes a week you’ll spend in the car. Here’s how it works:
Put in up to 10 origin addresses (these are locations you might potentially choose to live)
Put in up to 10 regular destinations (work, gym, neighborhoods, whatever) and how many one way trips you make to each of them each week
Click the blue button and wait a minute or two while the macro goes to Google Maps to find the drive time between each pair of address (up to 10×10, or 100 pairs)
Look at the pivot table to see the total minutes per week you’ll spend in the car
This might seem excessive but it actually shifted our thinking substantially as we considered moving to different neighborhoods. Places that seemed nice and only slightly out of the way ended up incurring another 2-3 hours of commuting time every week while the neighborhood we’re in already emerged as the clear winner in terms of convenience – and by a much larger margin than I would have thought.
This is not a very sophisticated macro, so if Google changes the layout of their maps page it will probably break…but at least you can use it for a proof of concept.
From our trip last week. The Eiffel Tower and Invalides are visible at left. This is from a point and shoot camera (Panasonic LX-3); I’m getting less and less excited about lugging a full SLR rig around town when on vacation.
This is unbelievably cool. This guy has persisted in finding ways to move extremely heavy items using only primitive tools. He’s approaching the point where given time he can assemble something like Stonehenge – not only without cranes but nearly unassisted by other people! Very inspirational.
