Rennaissance travel times

Okay, let’s keep this one simple. From point A to point B in the late 17th century is 1300 miles, mostly along well-travelled rivers. How long is the journey likely to take?

I’m not sure we can keep it simple. There were all sorts of variables, such as weather conditions, time of year, type of boat, geography, whether one was travelling upstream or downstream, purpose of the journey, cost etc. One estimate I’ve seen was only 10 miles per day on inland rivers, but that was specifically for the movement of freight. The problem is that, for many routes, any passengers would have had to hitch lifts on boats whose primary purpose was freight transportation.

These were some of the reasons why by the late seventeenth century most passengers went by road instead. Put very crudely, river transport was easier but slower and so tended to be used for moving goods in bulk. Times by road for passengers were also subject to wide variations. Twenty miles per day would have been relatively easy, fifty miles very good going and over one hundred possible if the journey was urgent and one was fit and had regular changes of horses. Of course, fast times were difficult to maintain over successive days. The less urgent the journey, the more one would have factored in breaks along the way.

The obvious place to go for more detailed information would be some of the works of Fernand Braudel (which, unfortunately, I don’t have to hand).