80 feet is identical to 26-2/3 yards and 24.384 meters. It would take the average 5-foot-9 person roughly 32 steps to cover that distance, assuming each of their footsteps is 30 inches.
But if you’d like to gauge 80 feet by eye rather than footstep count, then you should memorize the lengths of these 9 everyday objects that measure 80 feet or close to it.
Red Pine Tree
Red pine trees are harvested to construct utility poles due to their large size. If you left a red pine tree alone, it could live for up to 350 years and grow up to 120 feet! If you’re wondering where it gets its name from, the lumber harvested from red pine trees has a reddish-brown hue.
When harvested, red pine trees usually measure between 35 and 100 feet, though many of them are harvested after reaching the 70 to 80-foot mark. So, if you ever see a whole red pine tree in a lumber mill, it will give you a rough idea of what 80 feet looks like.
10 Surfboards
Surfing is one of the oldest sports in human history, with records showing that people began surfing as early as the 12th century. British explorer James Cook documented seeing people riding waves in 1778 while standing aboard rough planks of wood.
Today, surfboards generally measure 8 feet long at least, which means 10 of them placed end to end will give you a collective length of about 80 feet. However, you would only need about 2 of the longest surfboard in the world to get to 80 feet. It measured 42 feet long and could accommodate 66 surfers at the same time for 12 seconds.
1-3/5 Residential Streets
A residential street is a street that divides homes and apartment buildings. When driving along residential streets, you have to adhere to a set of rules that are a bit different from urban roads, such as low speed limits and giving way to other motorists heading in the opposite direction to you.
The width of a residential street varies from district to district. In some places in California, residential streets are about 60 feet wide, though the national average is 50 feet. However, some places can have much narrower roads that are only 20 feet wide for 2-way traffic, in which case, you would need to envision 4 street widths to get to 80 feet.
20 Sidewalk Widths
Sidewalks are an important part of getting around. They allow pedestrians to move freely without worrying about crashes, with roughly 80% of Americans preferring to live in communities with sidewalks to get around. With proper care, a sidewalk can last for 20 years with light maintenance every couple of years.
The average sidewalk in the United States measures 4 feet wide, so 20 of them would give you a width of about 80 feet. Some places have a 2-foot buffer between the road and the sidewalk to enhance the safety of pedestrians and motorists alike.
10 Volleyball Net Heights
Volleyball is an intense sport that was originally played indoors. It wasn’t until the 1920s in California that people took the sport outdoors and onto the beach, and a decade later, the 2-man volleyball team as a competitive sport was invented. In the US, there are two professional volleyball leagues—the National Volleyball Association (NVA) and the Volleyball League of America (VLA).
According to official gameplay regulations, the top of a volleyball net must be about 8 feet off the ground for men and less than 7.5 feet for women. The fastest volleyball spike in the world was recorded at 132 km/h or roughly 82.021 mph!
1-1/3 Distance from Home Plate to First Base
Despite its decreasing popularity in the US, MLB players continue to make 7-figure salaries. The MLB has been around for over a century and consists of 30 teams. In 2021, the Atlanta Braves took home the World Series trophy after beating the Houston Astros in a 4-2 best-of-7 series.
The layout of a professional baseball field is a 90-foot diamond, so the distance between one base to its adjacent bases is 10 feet beyond the 80-foot mark. The distance from the home plate to the pitcher’s mound is 60.5 feet, so you would need to multiply it by 1-1/3 to get to about 80 feet.
5 Kia Sorentos
The Kia Sorento is a mid-sized crossover that seats up to 7 people. It has a maximum trunk space of 75.5 cubic feet behind the first row, and it has received a reliability rating of 4/5 stars, ranking it 12th out of 26 vehicles in its class. The first-generation Sorento was produced in 2002 as a compact SUV.
If you look at a 2022 Kia Sorento, you’ll find that the length difference between trim options is negligible (about 0.4 inches). So, regardless of which trim option you use as a reference, you would need just about 5 Kia Sorentos parked end to end to get to 80 feet.
20 Park Benches
Benches are installed in parks to give patrons a place to sit while they enjoy the environment or eat a prepared meal. They are typically made of wood, though you can find metal, plastic, and concrete park benches in many public spaces. The average park bench will sit between 2 and 4 people.
Most park benches measure 4 feet wide, so 20 of them placed side by side would give you 80 feet. Park benches were first invented in Paris by the French architect Gabriel Davioud in the mid-19th century.
8 Horse Trailers
A horse trailer is a specific type of trailer that is used to transport horses across far distances. They differ from regular trailers in how they are designed to provide comfort to the “cargo.” Some horse trailers come with extra padding on the ground and corners to ensure that the horse’s feet don’t swell and that it doesn’t injure itself during long journeys.
On average, a horse trailer will measure 10 feet deep, but much larger trailers can measure up to 12 feet and accommodate as many as half-a-dozen horses at once.
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