Fastest isn’t cheapest: London to Tokyo three ways

By Georoute · 10 November 2026

Ask for the best way from London to Tokyo and the honest answer is “best how?”. In Georoute every round has an objective: the fastest trip, the cheapest fare, or the fastest trip you can afford under a spending cap. We gave the same two cities to the game’s route solver once for each objective. It came back with three completely different journeys, and the budget one turned up a twist we didn’t expect.

All times and fares below come from Georoute’s own travel model, not real timetables or ticket prices. They are puzzle numbers, so please don’t book a trip with them.

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The three answers at a glance

Objective	Route	Travel time	Fare
Fastest	One flight, London → Tokyo	13h 57m	$1,428
Cheapest	Ship to Vadsø (Arctic Norway), ship to Tokyo	11 days 17h	$433
Budget ($740 cap)	Fly to Trondheim, drive to Bodø, ship up the coast to Vadsø, ship to Tokyo	10 days	$739

Fastest: one flight, no stops

The fastest route is the obvious one: a single 9,559 km flight, 13 hours 57 minutes including boarding, for $1,428. In Georoute every new vehicle you board costs extra time and money, and every extra flight adds a connection. A single nonstop flight pays those costs only once, so nothing beats it. Even a one-stop route through a hub on the way only adds time.

Over long distances, fastest rounds often come down to finding the right flight. The puzzle gets more interesting over shorter trips, where airport boarding time can make a car or a helicopter quicker than a plane.

Georoute map in fastest mode: one purple flight arc from London over Scandinavia and Russia to Tokyo. The panel shows 13h 57m, $1,428, 0 transfers, 9,559 km. — The fastest route in the game: one flight. Its arc curves north over Scandinavia and Russia, because that is the shortest path on a globe.

Try London → Tokyo: fastest

Cheapest: over the top of the world

The cheapest route takes 11 days and 17 hours and costs $433, less than a third of the flight. It is two ship legs: London to Vadsø, a small port near Norway’s border with Russia, then Vadsø to Tokyo.

Sailing north to reach Japan looks odd on a flat map, but not on a globe. The shortest line from London to Tokyo runs over Scandinavia and the Arctic, and Vadsø sits almost exactly on it. The two ship legs add up to 9,574 km, only 15 km more than the direct flight. In Georoute’s model, a ship charges about a third of a car’s fare per kilometre, so the shortest sea path is also the cheapest trip.

On the map, the game draws each ship leg along a path through the water, so the second leg follows Russia’s Arctic coast before turning south past Japan. That path is only a drawing: times and fares come from the straight-line distance between the two ports. The geometry behind the result is real, though: on a sphere, “up and over” really is shorter.

Georoute map in cheapest mode: a dashed blue ship route from London up the Norwegian coast to Vadsø, then along Russia’s Arctic coast and down to Tokyo. The panel shows 11d 17h and $433. — The cheapest route: two ship legs via Vadsø. The dashed sea path is drawn for display; fares use the straight-line distance between ports.

Try London → Tokyo: cheapest

Budget: still mostly at sea

For a budget round on this pair, the game sets a cap of $740. That is far below the $1,428 flight, so the fastest affordable route is a patchwork. Fly to Trondheim, drive to Bodø, take ships up the Norwegian coast to Vadsø, then cross to Tokyo. It costs $739, one dollar under the cap, and takes exactly 10 days.

The extra $306 over the cheapest route buys back only 1 day and 17 hours, because the 7,002 km ship crossing from Vadsø is still there. With this budget, the only way to save time is to reach Vadsø sooner.

Georoute map in budget mode with a $740 cap: a purple flight to Trondheim, a short drive to Bodø, then ships to Vadsø and Tokyo. The panel shows $739 of $740 spent, $1 remaining, 10 days. — The budget route uses $739 of the $740 cap: a flight and a drive to reach the Arctic ship faster.

Try London → Tokyo: budget

The price of time: what each extra dollar buys

We then asked the solver for the fastest route under each spending cap from $433 to $1,428. These are its best answers at five points along the way:

Spending cap	Fastest route the solver found	Travel time
$433	Two ships via Vadsø	11 days 17h
$740	Plane, car and ships via Trondheim, Bodø and Vadsø	10 days
$811	Fly to Tromsø, boat and car to Vadsø, ship to Tokyo	9 days 2h
$1,097	Ships to Tiksi in Arctic Russia, then flights via Yakutsk and Harbin, and a drive from Niigata	7 days 18h
$1,400	Ships along the Baltic to Helsinki, fly to Nagoya, drive to Tokyo	3 days 19h
$1,428	One flight	13h 57m

Look at the last two rows. With $1,400 to spend, you still spend more than three days on Baltic ferries, because that is the only way to keep enough money for the long flight. Add just $28 and you can afford the nonstop flight, which saves 3 days and 6 hours.

The curve is lumpy because one leg, the long-haul flight to Asia, costs more than everything else put together. Until you can afford it, extra money only buys small savings at sea. Once you can, the whole route changes at once.

What this means when you play

In budget rounds, price the expensive leg first. Work out whether you can afford the one long flight, then plan the rest around what’s left.
On long routes, look north. On a flat map the shortest line between Europe and Asia looks like a curve. The ports and airports that lie on it are usually the best stepping stones.
Count transfers, not just kilometres. Every vehicle you board costs time and money, which is why one flight beats any chain of flights to the same city.

The route planning strategy guide has more tips like these, and how to play explains the three objectives and the scoring.

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