My favourite distance measurement is neither metric nor imperial but nautical. A nautical mile is 1852 metres which approximates the distance of a minute of arc of the Earth's meridians. A cable's length is 1/10 of a nautical mile which (depending on the definition used) is in turn about 100 fathoms. I know all unit systems are arbitrary, but for some reason it feels a bit less contrived than miles or kilometres to me.

Having said that I've never actually used cables or fathoms in practice, only metres or feet for depth and nautical miles for distance.