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Is This The World’s Longest Continuous Walk? Cape Town To Magadan

March 3, 2023 56 Comments

Is This The World's Longest Continuous Walk? Cape Town To Magadan

Map created using Google Maps

The map above potentially shows one of the world’s longest uninterrupted walks from Cape Town, South Africa to Magadan, Russia a distance of 22,387km (13,910 miles).

Google Maps estimates it would take 4,492 hours to walk it, which translates into 187 days of non-stop walking. If instead you decided to walk a more sensible 8 hours a day, it would take you 562 days to complete the whole walk.

Over the course of the walk you’d ascend a total of 117,693m (386,132ft) and descend 117,686m (386,109ft) – equivalent to 13 round trips up and down Everest.

You would have to travel through 16 countries including South Sudan, Syria and Georgia. So not the safest of routes.

This whole post was inspired by this post on reddit by user cbz3000.

Found a longer route, please leave it in the comments below. Want to read more about some other epic walks? Then have a look at the following books:

  • The Long Walk: The True Story Of A Trek To Freedom
  • 3mph: The Adventures of One Woman’s Walk Around the World
  • Walk of Ages: Edward Payson Weston’s Extraordinary 1909 Trek Across America
  • Bold Spirit: Helga Estby’s Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America
  • A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
  • A Walk Across America

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Filed Under: World Maps

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Comments

  1. Tom says

    December 31, 2018 at 5:10 am

    By the way GEORGIA is the third safest country in Europe!
    Missinformation in article.

    Reply
    • Syed Usama says

      November 21, 2022 at 10:19 pm

      how can you calculate distance over time?

      Reply
  2. Pat says

    December 31, 2018 at 2:57 pm

    It’s CLOSE to being the longest walkable route by why start and end there? You can start further south at L’Agulhas in South Africa, which will add 40-50km. More importantly, why would you stop at Magadan? Having come that far, surely you would push on to Naukan on the Bering Strait? You could even go south to Ozernovskiy at the tip of the Kamchatka peninsula. Either of these would add at least another 2,000 km.

    Reply
    • Alex says

      April 12, 2019 at 6:54 pm

      I think the person who made the map discovered what I did. Google Maps won’t make a route to Ozernovskiy. While it’s likely possible, making this in Google Maps was probably the limiting factor here. Roads seem pretty sparse in that far eastern bit of Russia. I’m sure there are roads to connect those towns but maybe they aren’t mapped well or maybe they are impermanent and are recreated as the snow freezes and thaws.

      Reply
    • MARIA HEATON says

      April 30, 2019 at 10:52 pm

      Wow? that’s right, if you go all over there, why not just go father?. I doubt that I would go there, me comformo with El Camino, from the south of France, all the way to Santiago de Compostlea, 500 miles/800 km. There a re a lot of hikes I would love to do, and learn more about cultures, ethnicities, languages and many other treasures. Reading, , dreaming and wondering is another way to travel, and refresh our minds, and walk every day of course. Yesterday was raining, today is a windy day, different and beautiful

      Reply
      • Kdog says

        May 11, 2019 at 7:05 pm

        Longest walk? What about the round trip, all around the coast, or as close to it as possible. Through south east Asia, China, India, the Arabian peninsula down through Africa, and so on? Is there a limit to the countries visited (only once?) is it a direct-ish line? If not, the possibilities are many.

        Reply
        • Voix says

          January 5, 2020 at 6:00 pm

          yes yes yes!

          Reply
        • karanjeet badwal says

          January 25, 2020 at 10:48 am

          Well technically why don’t loop this circuit infinity and continue walking so this article is wrong. You can walk for as long as you want and keep on going. Zig zag through each country countless times.

          Reply
        • Phoenix says

          January 4, 2021 at 11:08 pm

          Not the longest walk the longest road

          Reply
    • K.Rajakumaran says

      January 16, 2020 at 3:00 am

      Is it possible to ridee bike in this way ??

      Reply
      • mike says

        March 17, 2021 at 11:45 pm

        A friend rode hid mountain bike from Cape Town to Egypt/The Med – so i would say yes. If that helps. 🙂

        Reply
    • Cason B says

      March 15, 2021 at 6:10 pm

      Actually the longest walk woulb be from cape peninsula to denkar to bankok to france to magadan to china which is 64,152.9 kilometers which would take about 1.46370683 years.

      Reply
  3. Rolf says

    January 2, 2019 at 11:54 am

    Hardly a “continuous” walk. Wading across the Red Sea is not an option, a long swim seems unrealistic to me as well, so how do you walk from Hurgada to Sharm el Sheikh?

    Reply
    • John says

      January 18, 2019 at 12:27 pm

      Divert and cross Suez canal via ferry crossing near Al Kubri or seek permission to walk through Ahmed Hamdi Tunnel.

      Reply
    • Fkarian says

      January 20, 2019 at 8:28 pm

      @Rolf You can always walk around towards Suez, go across, and then down again….

      Reply
      • Dman says

        January 22, 2019 at 6:25 pm

        Suez Canal Bridge?

        Reply
  4. Adam says

    January 22, 2019 at 12:05 am

    You can hypothetically walk from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina which is ~19,000 miles. This guy made the trip on bicycle, so it is possible.

    https://www.seattletimes.com/life/travel/a-seattleites-epic-bike-ride-from-alaska-to-argentina/

    Reply
    • Popmonster says

      March 24, 2019 at 9:01 pm

      How did he make it over the water with his bike?

      Reply
      • William T Knowles Jr says

        October 25, 2020 at 4:03 am

        Two bridges which are serviceable 24/7 cross the Panama Canal, and all of the intervening rivers and waterways… There is the Darien Pass, but, it’s been crossed by vehicles for decades, going back to 1966 by two Chevrolet Corvairs and their service vehicles.

        Reply
  5. Monster Plush says

    March 24, 2019 at 9:00 pm

    I bet you wouldn’t even make it.

    Reply
  6. Khai says

    April 20, 2019 at 11:46 pm

    Not sure how the “longest” is defined.
    I think it would be better named “farthest two points between which Google Maps walking navigation algorithm can find the shortest connection”.

    Without such definition the word “longest” is pointless, because additional distance can be added either at each end or simply add certain destinations in the middle- e.g. adding some European city between start and end would make the journey significantly longer.

    Reply
  7. Shakoor says

    May 28, 2019 at 7:32 am

    Cap town to kuta is another walking distance

    Reply
  8. Overtones78 says

    May 30, 2019 at 4:57 pm

    I’m guessing this is meant to be the longest one among the shortest walks between two points (as elaborated by Google Maps).

    Reply
  9. Open Gamer says

    June 28, 2019 at 3:12 pm

    It’s funny that, while living in Russia, I was in Cape Town 9 times and 0 times in Magadan …

    Reply
  10. Ahmad Gharbeia says

    July 7, 2019 at 4:42 pm

    Why does it cross the red sea at the mouth of the gulf of Suez instead of overland from the city of Suez or farther north!

    Reply
  11. Mark Baumgartner says

    August 27, 2019 at 10:33 pm

    I walked from Switzerland to Singapore but had to take a boat from Bangladesh to Thailand because Burma was still closed. Took me 33 months.

    Reply
    • Brilliant Maps says

      August 29, 2019 at 10:00 am

      That’s amazing! Would love to do a trip like that.

      Reply
  12. Sevgi says

    September 5, 2019 at 10:49 am

    What is the name of that road? Is there any foundation established the way and marked the paths all over the road or someone just played with Google maps between two random dots around the globe! Please be more informative!

    Reply
  13. Eric Brightwell says

    October 10, 2019 at 12:40 am

    As some have pointed out — this is the _shortest_ walk between two distant points. The longest walk could zig-zag and criss-cross the globe indefinitely.

    But, understanding the point of the writer — wouldn’t it be theoretically possible to walk from the southern tip of South America, north across North America, north across the ice caps (whilst they still exist), and then southwest across Asia and south into Africa?

    Reply
  14. PATRICIA A JEWETT says

    November 25, 2019 at 9:09 pm

    The Great trail across Canada says it is 14,996 miles long.

    Reply
  15. Ravi says

    January 1, 2020 at 10:40 am

    Nope. Sorry but you can’t make this walk. There is no road between Egypt and Sudan, you would have to take a ferry which I would consider cheating. You can make the walk/drive if you divert through Chad, Cameroon, Niger, Algeria and Libya. I spent way too longer trying to figure that our

    Reply
    • Justin True says

      January 25, 2020 at 5:28 pm

      and you are still wrong.
      Mario Rigby, Lev Woods and Justin True… examples

      Reply
  16. Tetra says

    May 25, 2020 at 8:33 am

    There is an actual highway system longer than this…the Pan-america highway is almost 30000 km long.

    Reply
    • Dave says

      October 26, 2020 at 9:43 am

      There is actually a missing section in the highway, called the Darien Gap, on the Panama-Colombia border. It’s about 60 miles long.

      Reply
  17. Alastair Humphreys says

    June 10, 2020 at 1:57 pm

    I’ve cycled that route!
    https://alastairhumphreys.com/roundtheworldbybike/
    Alastair

    Reply
    • Lydia says

      August 19, 2021 at 4:18 am

      Without a ferry?

      Reply
  18. Symon says

    August 31, 2020 at 5:27 am

    No Way the longest walk , Start in Argentina bottom of south America, walk to Alaska, walk across the baring Strait , yes it can be done at certain times of the year, that brings you to Russia Then walk down to south Africa

    Reply
    • MATT BAXTER says

      October 26, 2020 at 12:46 am

      There is no road that crosses from Colombia to Panama

      Reply
  19. Matt Baxter says

    October 25, 2020 at 10:27 pm

    Seems like a lot of posters are over-thinking this.
    This is the longest point-to-point walking route that Google will generate.

    Reply
  20. Bob says

    November 20, 2020 at 1:40 am

    Southern tip of Africa to southern tip of South America via the Bering Straits over winter

    Reply
    • Goatlips says

      March 5, 2021 at 8:24 pm

      “Southern tip of Africa to southern tip of South America via the Bering Straits over winter”
      A lot of people seem to be thinking up routes that don’t have roads.
      The point was to generate a walkable route, with official roads/paths, from point A to point B.

      Reply
  21. nishani says

    December 22, 2020 at 3:29 am

    Can we go by vehicle through this road?

    Reply
  22. mk says

    January 5, 2021 at 4:57 pm

    cars do it all the time, take the tunnel

    Reply
  23. Emily says

    January 8, 2021 at 11:29 pm

    You’re not walking the whole time though. Between Israel and Egypt you are taking a ferry. You should be going through Suez to get between Israel and Egypt so you WALK the whole time. So really it’s not the longest WALK as you take a ferry.

    Reply
  24. Gregory says

    January 12, 2021 at 4:58 am

    I think the goal is the longest “most direct” walkable route, i.e. without any unnecessary detours.

    However, using a ferry is definitely breaking the rules!

    So at least one would have to walk through the tunnel under the Suez Canal, which does make the route even longer.

    Reply
    • Gregory says

      January 12, 2021 at 5:06 am

      The Zambesi River ferry crossing can also be detoured, but when you get to the Nile River, there’s just no way across without using a ferry, so that seems to kill the exercise.

      Reply
  25. Stub Mandrel says

    January 17, 2021 at 12:41 pm

    This is longer, but you have to add a divert around the Black Sea as otherwise Google assumes you can walk across it (I switched off ferries).

    https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Cape+Town,+South+Africa/Shop+MTS,+Sovetskaya+Ulitsa,+43,+%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%B3%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F,+Magadan+Oblast,+Russia,+685910/@43.3319675,42.7579653,5.54z/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x1dcc500f8826eed7:0x687fe1fc2828aa87!2m2!1d18.4240553!2d-33.9248685!1m5!1m1!1s0x596bd491122041b3:0x2a72e0ec1d5574ae!2m2!1d151.2950189!2d59.5807128!3e2

    Reply
  26. Honey J Barber says

    March 20, 2021 at 12:15 am

    Still not as long as that walk to the bathroom in the morning.

    Reply
  27. Devendra Kumar Chouhan says

    April 10, 2021 at 1:25 pm

    Pan american highway is the longest highway

    Reply
  28. justadude_89 says

    July 4, 2021 at 12:35 am

    Canada’s Great Trail is 24,000 km long!

    Reply
  29. Lydia Majeau says

    August 19, 2021 at 4:28 am

    I am planning on trying this route in the next months, no cheating. Did anyone found out how to contour the Nile and the Red Sea since this post?

    Reply
  30. Sorin Acela says

    September 17, 2021 at 6:26 am

    It is so unbelievable how many fools in the whole world haven’t seen the sophism! 😀 😀 You can surely find a 1,000,000 km/miles “walking route” just by zigzagging in Europe! This stupid idea of the “longest walking route” was launched by an idiot who does not understand geometry. In fact that is (“might be”!) the SHORTEST walking route between the most distant points on the routable map.

    Reply
  31. Mahmud D Roje says

    December 22, 2021 at 2:09 pm

    i would really like to take this path
    if there is any support

    you can reach me anytime
    with easy plan and great team nothings i’m possible

    Reply
  32. Vickymileey says

    March 29, 2022 at 10:59 am

    Hello iam intrest this adventure iam walk now but i know rules please support me

    Reply
  33. Menno de Guisepe says

    September 9, 2022 at 6:33 pm

    Cape Town to Yanbian, Jilin, China is longer.

    Reply
  34. Iril Kolle says

    November 7, 2022 at 9:36 am

    This is wrong. Following the route, you need a ferry to cross Aldan river in Russia.

    Reply

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