Travel Articles – Morten Jonassen | Blog & Portfolio

Great Circles – The shortest way from point A to point B

Morten Jonassen — Sat, 21 Oct 2023 15:47:45 +0000

What is the shortest way from Berlin to San Francisco? Read on to know why your map might be fooling you.

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Greenland vs. Africa. The true size of the world.

Morten Jonassen — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 18:43:10 +0000

Do you know how big the world actually is?
If you take a look at the map below, you will probably think Greenland is a tad larger than Africa. Their shapes even look quite similar don’t they? But which one is actually bigger?

A common world-map with Greenland and Africa looking similar in size

The answer to this question might surprise many, but also underlines the silliness of the very question itself. The correct answer is of course Africa.
Africa has a larger landmass than Greenland, MUCH larger!

The African continent, with its 30,365,000 square km, is more than 14 times larger than the island of Greenland with its 2,166,000 square km. In fact the African content is larger than USA, China, India, Japan and Europe – combined!!

Check out this “true size” projection of Greenland on top of Africa. It really puts sizes into perspective.

Greenland overlaid on top of the African continent

But why does Greenland look so massive on the world map?

Well, this is the due to the representation of the landmasses on the common Mercator projection map. A disadvantage of such a map is introduced when the cylindrical landmasses are projected onto a flat 2D surface. The areas on the top and bottom will simply distort and become overly exaggerated in size.

To get a better idea of the true sizes of countries, I suggest looking at an old style physical globus. Alternatively, you can in fact use Google Maps. Just make sure to enable the “globe” view setting, which will give you a more accurate spherical representation of the world map.

The true country sizes with the “Globe View” in Google Maps

Visit The True Size of and generate your own size projection map. Here you can even overlay more countries to get a true grasp of the size of the world. Happy mapping and don’t believe in all the flat earthers.

References

The True Size of

Britannica: Greenland

Britannica: Africa

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Photos from Cactualdea Park: The largest Cacti Park in EU

Morten Jonassen — Sat, 15 Feb 2020 18:17:35 +0000

Cactualdea (the largest cactus park in europe) is a wonderful park located on the northern mountain slopes of La Aldea de San Nicolás - Grand Canaria. I stumbled upon this park by pure coincidence and decided to pop in for a closer look. I snapped a couple of photos along the way.

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The Wopper Index

Morten Jonassen — Sat, 14 Dec 2019 19:24:00 +0000

Okay, we all have guilty pleasures right!? Even-though I belong to the flexitarian crowd – meaning the majority of my meals are vegetarian – I shamefully have to admit that I’m a fan of the Whopper from Burger King.
Back in the day (during the burger revolution in Copenhagen) when I was still eating meat on a daily basis, I would oftentimes visit new burger joints around the city. However, all these so called “high quality ingredient restaurants” never really faired well against the tasty flame grilled Whopper. I always left these restaurants feeling a tad dissatisfied and wished I had gone to BK in the first place

The Double Whopper

Nowadays, I only eat Whoppers when I get the chance to travel. It has become a tradition of sorts – eating Whopper’s in every airport and country I get a chance to visit. Don’t ask me why, but I thought it would be fun to try and index the worldwide prices. The financially inclined have undoubtedly heard about the so called “Big Mac Index”. Well this is my index—the Whopper Index.

I’m going to need some help though, so please feel free to contribute with prices in the comments below and I’ll update the Index accordingly.

Now, you might be asking yourself; why should I care about the worldwide Whopper Prices?
Well… I don’t know the answer to that question yet! Perhaps the prices can be turned into a travel guide of sorts… I have to put on my creative thinking hat. But feel free to leave me some suggestions, along with your Whopper prices.

The Price Index (Work in progress)

Location: Flensburg, Germany
Double Whopper: 6,49€ (Aug 2024)

Location: Andorra La Vella, Andorra
Double Whopper: 8,45€ (Aug 2023)

Location: Germany, Northeim
Single Whopper: 5,39€ (Aug 2022)

Location: France, Colmar
Single Whopper: 5,40€ (Aug 2022)

Location: Spain, Las Palmas City Center
Single Whopper: 5.25€ (Dec 2021)

Location: Spain, Aeropuerto de Las Palmas
Single Whopper:
~~5.10€ (Dec 2019)~~
6.60€ (Nov 2023)
Double Whopper:
~~6.90€~~ ~~(Feb 2020)~~
~~6,70€ Dec (2021)~~
9.15€ (Feb 2024)

Location: Spain, Tenerife North Airport
Single Whopper: 4.45€ (Feb 2020)
Double Whopper: 5.60€ (Feb 2020)

Location: Denmark, Middelfart
Double Whopper: 8.02€ (Mar 2020)

Location: Spain, Maspalomas
Double Whopper: 5.65€ (Dec 2019)

Location: Thailand, Suvarnabhumi Airport
Single Whopper: 7.92€ (Dec 2019)

Location: Thailand, Bangkok
Single Whopper: 4.70€ (Dec 2019)

Location: Denmark, Copenhagen Airport
Double Whopper: 7,76€ (Aug 2017)

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