I grew up in the suburbs. The distance between home and HS is 3.06 miles. More importantly, if I started Kashmir as soon as I got on the bus, it would finish right when the bus pulled up to school.
According to Google Earth, 7.4 miles, and a 19 minute drive, but it sure took a lot longer on the days when I had to take the schoolbus–and no doubt seemed farther. I did actually think it was farther, like 10 miles or so. My school was just south of L.A.'s Brentwood district, and I grew up in Coldwater Canyon.
I went to grades 8 and 9 in a school a half-hour bus ride away - about 10 kilometres. This was after they improved the route – before that (same school), I had had to ride 1 1/2 hours each way.
After we moved to Montreal, I lived substantially closer to school. About 500 metres away, in fact. It was a bit of a relief.
Something like 3/4 of a mile away. It seemed a very long way when you had to carry all your books, PE kit, etc - I longed for lockers like kids on American TV always seemed to have!
About 20km I think. I caught the train to and from school every day, and it was about a 40 minute trip. About an hour door to door when you added in the time walking to and from the stations.
My high school was three miles away. Until I was old enough to drive I took the bus. My bus stop was picked up first in the morning, and left off last in the afternoon, meaning I spent 1.5 hours a day on a bus. It was nice to drive to school in a third of the time!
Zero miles. I lived in a boarding school. Apparently unlike a couple of boarders posting above, I really thought of it as home, and in fact now almost 40 years later it’s the main place I get homesick for.
There was a Main Building that included dorms, classrooms, dining room and kitchen, gym, library, and various other things. There were also bathrooms, though in wings separated by long open hallways, it having been a compromise when built so as to provide indoor access to the bathrooms - the custom until that time had been not to build bathrooms into buildings where people lived and ate (it was a pretty old building). Anyway, I remember noticing occasionally that I had not been outside the building for almost a week.
Because of this thread, I just mapped all my walks to school in Google Maps.
My walk to kindergarten and grades 1 and 2 was about 850 metres, none of it outside the subdivision.
My walk to grades 3-6 was a little over 4 blocks or around 500 m. The walk to senior public school (grades 7 and 8) was around 1.2 km and I rode the bus.
Me too. My first walk to HS during grades 9 and 10 was around 900 metres. Sometime around this time I got a ten-speed. Later, we moved, and the walk/ride was increased to almost 2 km. Then we moved again, all the way across town, and the distance was over 4 km. I continued to the same school and rode my bike or got a ride.
Admittedly, i didn’t grow up in a place where cold winter temperatures were an issue, but even if i had, i think the idea of being indoors for a week at a time would have driven me crazy when i was a teenager. Hell, even now, at 40, i get a bit stir-crazy if i can’t get outside every now and then.
My boarding school was an agricultural school, and had a total of about 300 acres of land, including three or four rugby/soccer/hockey fields, cricket nets, basketball courts, tennis courts, and a 25 meter swimming pool. When we weren’t in class or sleeping in our dorms, my friends and i spent most of our high school years playing one sport or another, or just hanging around outside. We can common rooms with televisions, but we never spent very much time in there, apart from a compulsory half-hour watching the news each weekday evening; i think i watch more TV as an adult than i did as a teenager.
No, no, not that part. Just going away to school as a teenager, having everything you need right there. Tasting a little bit of independence (in being away from your family), but still basically being provided for. And I imagine the camaraderie must’ve been very strong. I never went into the military and didn’t go to college until I was 26, so I never really experienced things like that, but got tastes of it here and there, and I think I would’ve liked it.
No idea of the distance, but the time by short bus ride, change to the El, then change to the subway and get off and walk three blocks (or sometimes, take a trolley for the three blocks). Total trip was an hour.
I went to the all-academic HS in Philly. It was a long schlep but when I got to college, it was easy while the transition was a shock to the people who had gone to regular HS.