Travel in the 1800 and 1900s???

[ThrelfallYorky]

I suspect people did get around more at that time than we generally assume. As others have said, canals, coastal vessels, railways, coach and cart on roads (market days could still at that time be a big social event) ponies and bicycles, as well as a willingness to walk far more in everyday journeys than we would generally think of managing.

[Maiden Stone]

Many more railways than there are now. Small towns and some villages were well connected.  100 years ago there were 3 railway stations for different lines approximately a mile South, East and North from my rural POB. There's still a railway line to the West but the nearest station on it is 8 miles away.

Before railways there were canals, coaches and carts. 19thC newspapers carried adverts for stagecoaches and carriers. Conveyances departed from inns in a large town or city, calling at other inns en-route. The town of Garstang in Lancashire has a large number of pubs for a town of its' size because Garstang is on a main road to Scotland and the pubs were coaching inns. Garstang is also on the Lancaster Canal. The town was a travel hub. Nearby Lancaster was a busy international port during 18thC so there would be plenty of traffic to & fro by canal and road.
Seaside holidays began in late 18thC. Stagecoach routes catered for the visitors, connecting small coastal towns to larger places. 200 years ago there was a daily coach between Preston and Blackpool in each direction. It called at my ancestor's coaching inn. One of his sons, who helped him run the inn, married a girl from County Durham. One of his friends married her sister. (I wonder if the 2 girls  arrived by stagecoach for a holiday.)
A railway line was built around 1830 connecting the rapidly growing industrial town of Preston with the settlements which made up Longridge to the north. Longridge quarries produced the stone Preston needed. Preston men used to travel in the empty trucks to Longridge each morning to work in the quarries and return to Preston each evening, perched on top of truckloads of stone. Some men were injured when stone moved during the journey.
 

[andrewalston]

Macclesfield to Spitalfields is 163 miles, 2 days 6 hrs to walk it according to g maps. Given they wouldn't walk 24hrs a day and probably pulling a cart with goods on then I would say 5 days each way. Of course, the rds wouldn't have been so good then.

I'm pretty sure about the journeys in the 1840s to 1860s being by rail. A baby born in Spitalfields and baptised a couple of weeks later in Macclesfield was among their brood, randomly distributed between the places. The fourth child was born in Macclesfield and baptised in Bethnal Green. The trade was "silk finisher", but that could easily describe someone who employed others and was checking on business at each end of the "commute".