A day at the beach....

[Darkeldar]

So I thought I thought I'd do another launch pad science mission, and I EVA'd and ended up walking due east to the shore line. Stepped into the ocean and grabbed a sample and hiked back. Boarded the pod and recovered to get my SCIENCE! Takes a less than a couple hours (game time) and is within 2km of the launch pad. I had 4x time going for most of the hike, and other than having to hold down the direction button, I'm going to try it again to grab some beach sand.

[Superfluous J]

Should have made a hover craft. Smallest fuel tank, pod, and smallest engine you have that can lift. Give it just enough thrust to get off the ground and tilt it at the beach.

When you get there, land (crashing is fine, without ladders or landing gear you probably can't take off again anyway), take your eva and sample reports, and you can recover without all the hiking.

Or maybe my Kerbals are just lazy