I recently took a trip to Canada, and I had a hard time speaking metric, especially when asking for directions. After a little bit of thought, here's a quick way to convert between the two.

Miles to Kilometers: Essentially, you're adding 60%. While that's kinda hard to do in your head, if you break it down into 50% + 10%, it makes it much easier.

Lets say you're trying to convert 50 Miles into kilometers. You're going to add 50 + 25 + 5. (100% + 50% + 10%). That equals 80 km. It's precise conversion is 80.4672. So that's not bad for a quick conversion.

Let's do another. 70 Miles. 70 + 35 + 7 = 112 km. It's exact conversion is 112.654. Again, not 100% accurate, but close enough to get you where you need to go.

Kilometers to Miles: Essentially the opposite, you're subtracting 40%. Again, it's much easier if you break it down. Subtract 50%, then add 10% back.

Here it is in practice, I'll do 120 km. 120 - 60 + 12 (100% - 50% + 10%) It comes out to 72. It's exact measurement is 74.5645. Not quite as accurate as miles - kilometers, but it still gives you a great estimate.

One more. 50 km. 50 - 25 + 5 = 30. It's exact conversion is 31.0686. Again, not perfect, but it'll get you where you need to go.

Hope this was helpful! Thanks for reading.

  • replace this text with your list
  • begin each item with an asterisk
dec 24 2014 ∞
dec 24 2014 +