Greyhound is a bus line service that takes people all  over the United States with more than 2,000 bus terminals.  This is a great option for those that want to travel for the  holidays and not drive there themselves. You will find the  lines at the Greyhound terminal to be less hectic than at  the airport and you can simply get into your seat and relax  for the trip. Greyhound also offers amazingly fares so you can  definitely save money over driving your own vehicle or those  expensive airfares. The routes that are offered by  Greyhound are continually updated in order to meet the  needs of consumers so take a look online or call their  headquarters to see what they can offer you. They offer  comfortable seats that recline, heating and air conditioning,  and lights so you can read after dark. Don’t expect meals  to be served though. You will need to bring along your own  food and drinks on the bus. Since there are no assigned seats on a Greyhound bus  you will want to arrive at the terminal early when you travel  for the holidays. You want to make sure you get a choice  of seats. If you are traveling with companions you want to  make sure they have seats close to you as well. It can be  a mess for a single parent traveling on a Greyhound bus to  have to spread her children out. You can always hope  some people will be willing to change seats but you can’t  guarantee it.  One issue that many people are concerned with this is  security issues aboard Greyhound buses. They haven’t  updated their security measures since 09/11/01 like  Amtrak and the various airlines have. The use of metal  detectors on the buses have been randomly installed but  they aren’t guaranteed to be in place. This means there  may be people traveling on the bus that have weapons with  them. This is a risk that some holiday travelers find to be  too creepy to use this mode of transportation. In light of this, Greyhound has been working to improve  their image and to gain more confidence from consumers  traveling for the holidays. They are working on offering  quality bus terminals in case you have a long wait before  yours departs. Many of these bus terminals also have a  rental car agency inside so you can get to your final  destination without having to inconvenience someone else  to come pick you up. They have also started random security checks at various  Greyhound bus terminals in large cities. Those purchasing  a ticket have to show photo ID and their luggage is subject  to a random search. They are also working on providing  video cameras to record what takes place on the bus.  While there haven’t been any major issues with security  while people travel for the holidays on the buses, they want  to ensure the public that they are doing their part to make  sure it doesn’t.  For many holiday travelers though, riding a Greyhound bus  ensures that they can get to their destination without any  stress and without having to drive themselves. The cost is  very affordable. You need to make sure you understand  that riding on a Greyhound bus does take longer to get  there because they only go the speed limit and they will  make stops at various bus terminals along the way.

If you don’t take the time to approximate the time and distance your characters take from point A to point B, you risk inconsistencies which your detail-oriented readers will pick up on. You don’t want your troupe leaving too late to realistically catch the festival in the next town, or save their friend from his scheduled execution in the next kingdom. If you find they would be arriving too early, you can always throw obstacles in their way to slow them down.

Before you can calculate distance, you need a scaled map. A scale is a measurement showing how many inches/millimeters represent a number of miles. My own map scale: 1 inch = 100 miles. Now that you have your scale, you can begin measuring. Rarely do you want to measure the direct distance however – roads curve, adventurers have to backtrack, or a lake crosses their path. An easy trick is to use a piece of string or floss instead of a straight edged paper or ruler. You can curve the string along the exact path, cut it off, pull it straight and then measure it.

Now that you have the distance, you can begin to figure out time. Even if you don’t show the traveling itself, you need to have a sense of how much time has passed. What transportation method are they using? Walking, riding horses, wagon, ship, or some more fantastical method? Or in a modern fantasy: by car, plane, train? Here’s a handy reference chart for some of the most common means. All measurements are miles/hour (mph) unless noted otherwise.

Horses Horse speed varies by breed, stride, and condition, but here’s an average.
Walk: 3-5 mph
Trot: roughly 8-10 mph
Canter/Lope: 10-17 mph
Gallop: about 30 mph

Human travel (all assuming character is in average condition)
on dirt trails: 10-14 miles/day
on paved trails: 8-12 miles/day (no natural cushioning for feet)
on fair trails (natural, rocky, root covered, etc): 8-12 miles/day
average speed over natural terrain: 3 mph

Wagon
Ox-drawn: 16 miles/day
average wagon travel: 2 mph
exhaustive wagon travel: 6 mph

Ship
This varies greatly on ship type, weather, etc. The general answer would be 4 – 5 mph, but I urge you to do more specific research if you have much sea travel.

Transporting Information, not people
Passenger pigeons are able to fly over 60 mph

Keep in mind that the harder, faster speeds are difficult to keep up at long distances and will require more rest periods (non-man-powered vehicles being the exception).

If you use more modern transportation, you’ll want to research for the specific region and era. Also be sure to note the speeds of any travel means you’ve specifically created for your world.

How do I use this information?
If you have a distance and want to know how long it takes to travel, divide the distance by mph. You can figure out how far someone will journey in one day by multiplying the mph by the number of hours they travel. If your characters are on the move a lot, make a string in the length of their average daily travel so you can mark on the map where they end each day.

This is information that isn’t easy to locate through general searches, though the information is out there. I hope you find it useful.