jumpingjacktrash:

riptidepublishing:

quinnedleson:

Writing a historical novel means knowing how far they can travel on a horse, This is good info right here.

(via Pinterest)

Important thing to point out about travel by foot or horseback: if you’re traveling over mountains, you can basically cut those distances in half on a clean trail, and in thirds or quarters on a trail you have to blaze yourself. Although someone who’s been in the mountains for months or years may be able to travel at the paces listed above for several days at a clip. (For instance, it’s not uncommon for an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker, carrying about 30 pounds, to do 20 or even sometimes 25 miles a day, six days a week, once they’ve had enough time out there to build up into an endurance athlete.)

yeah, it’s gonna vary a lot depending on circumstances. don’t take this chart as a hard rule, more as a median point.

the variations in speed can make for interesting story elements, especially when you’re writing fantasy.

for instance, in ‘forge of dawn’, i had kastor make 10 or 15 miles a day when he was escorting sister magda and a load of books. later, when he was alone, on foot, with light baggage, living off what he could hunt, he crossed a thousand plus miles of swampy summer tundra in about a month, averaging maybe 35 miles a day despite the difficult terrain.

then there’s a point coming up in a future story where he’s rushing to save a friend, and he’s learned to tap into his mara heritage for a second wind that doesn’t quit, so he’ll be making well over a hundred miles a day, and surprise the bad guys by showing up days before he could ever possibly have gotten there.

his speed crossing the tundra is something a real life athlete could accomplish; his speed when he jogs day and night with only short breaks for days on end is something that maybe a few highly trained special forces soldiers could do if they were desperate. that’s intentional; i didn’t want to make him overtly superhuman, but i went for a feat that’s definitely epic and surprising.

so it helps a lot to know what the normal ranges are, even in fantasy, so you can decide when to surpass them and how far.