At the beginning of its journey, Voyager was approximately 70,000 light years from Earth. As the Milky Way has a diameter of approximately 100,000 light years, one side of a galactic quadrant equals 50,000 light years. The Sol system including Earth, is about 25,000 light years from the galactic center; thus, we can conclude that the Caretaker's Array and Voyager's starting point was on the far edge of our galaxy. At maximum warp, it was estimated that Voyager would take 75 years to get back to Earth. However, there were various factors which substantially shortened Voyager's stay in the Delta Quadrant:
• 2374 - Kes uses her new and more powerful psionic abilities to push Voyager 9,500 light years closer to Earth, simultaneously pushing them out of Borg space. (VOY: "The Gift")
• 2374 - Using the new astrometrics lab, Ensign Harry Kim and Seven of Nine plot a new course to the Alpha Quadrant that takes 5 years off of Voyager's journey. (VOY: "Year of Hell")
• 2374 - Quantum slipstream drive technology is discovered aboard the USS Dauntless, which brings Voyager 300 light years closer to home. (VOY: "Hope and Fear")
• 2375 - Within a region of space called The Void, Voyager discovers a wormhole which brings them 2,500 light years closer to Earth, also having the bonus of sending them out of the dark region they had been trapped in for the last few months. (VOY: "Night")
• 2375 - Voyager attempts to use quantum slipstream drive again. The ship travels 10,000 light years before the slipstream collapses due to intervention from an alternate future. (VOY: "Timeless")
• 2375 - Voyager raids a Borg sphere and manages to steal a transwarp coil. After using it on a rescue mission in the Delta Flyer, the coil allows the ship to travel 20,000 light years closer to home. (VOY: "Dark Frontier")
• 2376 - Voyager accidentally enters the Vaadwaur species' underspace corridors, which propel the ship 200 light years from its entry point. The direction, however, was not mentioned. (VOY: "Dragon's Teeth")
• 2376 - Voyager uses a graviton catapult designed by an alien called Tash to travel 600 light years closer to Earth. (VOY: "The Voyager Conspiracy")
• 2377 - Grateful for her assistance with his son, Q provides Janeway with a map containing a shortcut to the Alpha Quadrant that would shorten Voyager's journey home by "a few years"; whether they used this route before they managed to reach home wasn't revealed. (VOY: "Q2")
• 2378 - Voyager concludes its trip home by using the Borg transwarp network to return to the Alpha Quadrant, while destroying it with the help of an alternate future-timeline Admiral Kathryn Janeway. (VOY: "Endgame")
Combining these distances, Voyager was able to cover 48,100 light years in addition to that covered by normal means at warp speed. As a result, in only seven years the ship was able to cover at least the first half of its journey before it finally reached Earth in a Borg transwarp conduit. Furthermore, it is safe to say that Voyager must have been very close to the Beta Quadrant, and might have even already crossed its borders during the last months of its journey.
I didn't realize they were that far home when they jumped into the Borg hub. They were pretty much right next to the center of the Galaxy and on/near/past the delta/beta quadrant boarder.
They could have done some cool story lines with that. Getting closer to familiar territoty, running into some weird shit near the galaxy core.
Hell if they had given them another boost of 20,000 light years somewhere in series six they could have had series 7 be about them having to negotiate right of passage through Romulan or Klingon space.
So many missed opportunities.