MIDDLE-EARTH TIMELINE
Bilbo ran out of Bag End one spring morning in 2941, without a pocket-handkerchief, and set off with thirteen dwarves for the Lonely Mountain. Draw the road they took, then see how close you came.
Press on Bag End and draw your way to the Lonely Mountain
Maps: The West of Middle-earth at the End of the Third Age by Christopher Tolkien and Wilderland by J.R.R. Tolkien, © The Tolkien Estate, used here for commentary. The route follows The Hobbit and Karen Wynn Fonstad's The Atlas of Middle-earth, and the date of departure from "The Quest of Erebor" in Unfinished Tales. This follows the book, not the films.
In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins leaves Bag End in the spring of 2941 with Thorin's company and reaches the Lonely Mountain in the autumn. The game uses two maps: Christopher Tolkien's map of the West of Middle-earth from the Shire to Rivendell, then J.R.R. Tolkien's own map of Wilderland, drawn for The Hobbit, from Rivendell to the Mountain.
Beorn warned the company against it: goblins watched its western end, its eastern end was overgrown and lost in marshes, and it came out far to the south of the Mountain. So they took the Elf-path, further north, as Tolkien drew it on his map of Wilderland.
The route follows the book, not the films. Explore the rest of Middle-earth on the Lord of the Rings timeline, or follow Frodo in Walk to Mordor.
Close to 1,000 miles. The Eowyn Challenge, which follows the maps of Karen Wynn Fonstad's The Atlas of Middle-earth, counts 397 miles from Bag End to Rivendell alone. On the maps used in this game, Bilbo's road is a little over 900 miles.
About six months. According to The Quest of Erebor in Unfinished Tales, the Unexpected Party took place on 26 April 2941, so the company left the Green Dragon the next morning, 27 April. They found the secret door on Durin's Day, in the last week of autumn.
No. The company rode ponies from the Shire to the Misty Mountains, went under the mountains through the goblin tunnels, was carried by the Eagles to the Carrock, rode Beorn's ponies to the edge of Mirkwood, escaped from the Elvenking down the Forest River in barrels and went up the Long Lake by boat.
Bree is never named in The Hobbit, but the company followed the East Road, which runs through Bree. Tolkien's later rewrite of the chapter has them stay at the Prancing Pony.
Your line and the true route are both sampled every 5 miles and compared on each map: 60% of the score measures how much of the true road you missed, 40% how far you strayed from it. Each leg allows some margin where the book leaves the exact road open, as in Mirkwood.