There’s an incredibly long walking route on Earth that no one is known to have completed, and it’s easy to see why.
This route is the longest walkable distance available, yet no one has ever attempted it. If you’re looking to up your game on Strava, this could be the ultimate challenge.
Whether you’d actually want to tackle it is another matter, but it’s fascinating to know that it exists. You might even enjoy mapping it out, even if you never plan to embark on the journey.
The Earth’s longest walking route spans from South Africa to Eastern Russia. While packing light is advisable, you’d still have to navigate the challenge of trekking through hot deserts and frozen wastelands.
For anyone contemplating this ambitious hike—Russell Cook, this includes you—you would begin in Magadan, Russia, and finish in Cape Town, South Africa, covering nearly 22,387 km.
However, you’ll need to save up a lot of vacation days, as the route is estimated to take 187 days, or roughly 4,800 hours, of continuous walking to complete.
Even if you forgo all sleep and bathroom breaks, the journey would still take almost a year, far exceeding the typical 25 vacation days most people have. In addition to getting approval from your boss, you’ll need to pack an extensive wardrobe and carry a valid passport, as you’ll be crossing 17 countries, including the Suez Canal, Turkey, Central Asia, and Siberia, each with its own climate and challenging terrain.
It’s no surprise that no one is known to have completed this hike.
While completing this route would give you lifelong bragging rights and an incredible story, we wouldn’t recommend it.
Aside from getting extremely tired, the journey takes you through some of the world’s most dangerous areas, such as Russia, which is currently involved in a war following its invasion of Ukraine. You would also have to navigate multiple border crossings.
Jeffrey Weinstein, a medical operations supervisor at Global Rescue, told Global Rescue: “It’s not that walking this distance is impossible. But there’s a big difference between something being doable and something being accomplishable. There are just so many complicating factors to this trek, it would be extremely unlikely anyone would be able to accomplish it.”