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Foursquare's Holiday Travel Infographic: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

By Rain Noe - November 25, 2011

in Social Impact

The worst travel days of the year are upon us Americans, who have by today hopefully reached their destinations and are giving thanks for uneventful trips. But by now a portion of us will have dealt with overcrowded highways leading to the airport, delayed flights, and storage wars in the unruly overhead bins.

As miserable as it is on the ground or in the air, when seen at a remove, all of this chaos looks rather beautiful. In honor of the American holidays Foursquare has posted this infographic time-lapse map tracking US travel at this time last year, starting at Halloween and spanning until Christmas. The blue arcs represents air travel, the red veins are train journeys and white represents cars on highways.It's not comprehensively accurate in that this is merely a map of people who bothered "checking in" on Foursquare at the beginnings and ends of their trips, but it's enough to give you a rough idea. What I found surprising was the part at the bottom seemingly indicating train travel is more popular than our beloved cars:

Being a huge fan of train travel myself, I'd like to see more high-speed rail in this country in the future, and a lot more red on this map of red, white and blue.

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Josh

13 years ago

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As an avid foursquare user, it's my observation that few people (as a percentage of all users) check in on roads and highways, whereas airport and train station checkins are pretty common.
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Alan

13 years ago

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The dead ends of the rail check-ins are a little sad. Think of all the highway traffic we could eliminate.
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Nermal

13 years ago

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I'd guess trains are more popular because a train station is a clear check-in target; a road is not.
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