How geographic distance affects ping

The basic idea

As the server gets farther away, round‑trip time (RTT) usually increases. Routing choices, congestion, and Wi‑Fi conditions can change ping even more than distance alone.

Why can ping be high even with great speed?

• Routing: Your traffic may take a longer path.
• Congestion: Peak hours increase ping and jitter.
• Wi‑Fi / bufferbloat: Ping can spike under load.

What about VPNs?

A VPN doesn’t reduce physical distance, but it can change routing. Sometimes it helps by avoiding a bad path; sometimes it adds an extra hop and makes latency worse.

Run the speed test and compare ping/jitter with and without the VPN.

Practical steps

• Compare Ethernet vs Wi‑Fi
• Stop background uploads/downloads
• Enable QoS/SQM if available
• Pick the server with the lowest ping, not just the closest-sounding location

Takeaway

Closer is often better, but routing quality matters more than distance alone.