Holy shit for a NES game the world map feels huge, in comparison Mother 2 didn't feel anything special compared to the other jrpgs of the time and Mother 3's world is small as fuck even compared to Earthbound.
But Mother 1? Probably has the biggest world in the NES

I'm tired of tourism simulators. I want to go on an adventure, not a vacation.

I like how Mother and Earthbound do it, they're clearly meant to be America but they capture how it must look through the eyes of a kid growing up there instead of making a literal interpretation of it. That's what inspired Kanto, after all.