Travelling Within the Boundaries

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You’ve seen the photos online, maybe on Facebook or Instagram, of a tourist stretched in all directions like he’s playing a game of Twister, but one foot is officially in the state of Utah while another foot resides in Colorado.  It’s the most common photo taken at the Four Corners at the Navajo Reservation in the USA.  The Four Corners represents where the borders of four U.S. states neatly meet up: Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico.

So why stop there? Why not draw up a “bucket list” to visit other well-known national and international lines of demarcation? Better create your own Instagram page before setting off on your adventure. 

Royal Observatory Greenwich – marks the spot of the world’s prime meridian (the planet’s line of zero degrees longitude) and the line by which all time zones are set as well as Greenwich Mean Time (the local time at the zero meridian) and the standard by which all clocks are set. The observatory, which is located at Blackheath Avenue in Greenwich, England, also hosts a planetarium, museum and observatory. There are many events happening at the observatory for kids, teens and adults such as live planetarium shows, Sci-Fi exhibits, presentations and talks, films, and much more. It is open every day (except major holidays) from 10am to 5pm. Entrance to the Astronomy Centre is free. For tourists and that bucket list, you can get a certificate declaring you were in two hemispheres at the same time.

The Equator – ask any sailor or Naval officer, and they can tell you straight away if they’ve crossed the Equator (a source of pride) or not. The equator is the line that divides the northern and southern hemispheres of the planet Earth. At the equator, you may see a sign that reads “Latitude: 0 degrees – 0 degrees – 0 degrees.”  If you look at a globe, a large portion of the line of the equator is drawn over the ocean, which is cool if you cross it in a ship. For those who prefer dry land, there are a few countries that straddle the hemispheres such as Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Indonesia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda, to name several.  For that bucket list photo, head to La Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the World) in Ecuador (or to be more precise, the Republic of Ecuador which translates to Republic of the Equator).

International Date Line – is an imaginary line of longitude running from the north to the south that marks where the date changes by one day. It passes through the middle of the Pacific Ocean and is an uneven line so as not to cut certain countries in two (see below). Can you imagine the confusion if your neighbor was going about their business as if it was Tuesday and you are still watching Monday Night Football?  Attention all tourists with cameras: head to the small island of Taveuni in Fiji where you can unofficially stand on the International Date Line. Spoiler alert: officially the dateline was shifted so as not to have two time zones on the small island, but no one in Fiji will tell.
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