World's Longest Drive

[Euan]

Slight variation on the theme - this is supposed to be the world’s longest walk:

https://brilliantmaps.com/longest-walk/

Presumably ferries must be permitted for the route as it appears to cross the Gulf of Suez on the way through Egypt. I also seem to recall that it is difficult, but not impossible, to find a "dry route" between Sudan and Egypt.

[Vierwielen]

Slight variation on the theme - this is supposed to be the world’s longest walk:

https://brilliantmaps.com/longest-walk/

Presumably ferries must be permitted for the route as it appears to cross the Gulf of Suez on the way through Egypt. I also seem to recall that it is difficult, but not impossible, to find a "dry route" between Sudan and Egypt.

The Gulf of Suez is easy to cross without getting your feet wet - go a little furhter north and cross using the Gulf of Suez Bridge. Getting from Sudan to Egypt looks difficult - one coudl swing west while still in South Sudan and head for Kano (Nigeria) before turning north, going through Niger, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. There might however be a problem on this alternative route which take you north of the Congo River basin - I don't know if every river is bridged - there could still be the odd ferry where it was niot economic to build a bridge.

[Euan]

Slight variation on the theme - this is supposed to be the world’s longest walk:

https://brilliantmaps.com/longest-walk/

Presumably ferries must be permitted for the route as it appears to cross the Gulf of Suez on the way through Egypt. I also seem to recall that it is difficult, but not impossible, to find a "dry route" between Sudan and Egypt.

The Gulf of Suez is easy to cross without getting your feet wet - go a little furhter north and cross using the Gulf of Suez Bridge. Getting from Sudan to Egypt looks difficult - one coudl swing west while still in South Sudan and head for Kano (Nigeria) before turning north, going through Niger, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. There might however be a problem on this alternative route which take you north of the Congo River basin - I don't know if every river is bridged - there could still be the odd ferry where it was niot economic to build a bridge.

Yes, the Gulf of Suez I believe is one of only three dry ways of crossing the Suez Canal with the other two being the railway bridge and the road tunnel. Google must not regard it as the most direct route through Egypt though.

There is in fact not a single bridge crossing the River Congo between Matadi and Kongolo which probably makes it one of the biggest natural barriers to traversing continental Africa without getting wet.

[Vierwielen]

Presumably ferries must be permitted for the route as it appears to cross the Gulf of Suez on the way through Egypt. I also seem to recall that it is difficult, but not impossible, to find a "dry route" between Sudan and Egypt.

The Gulf of Suez is easy to cross without getting your feet wet - go a little furhter north and cross using the Gulf of Suez Bridge. Getting from Sudan to Egypt looks difficult - one coudl swing west while still in South Sudan and head for Kano (Nigeria) before turning north, going through Niger, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. There might however be a problem on this alternative route which take you north of the Congo River basin - I don't know if every river is bridged - there could still be the odd ferry where it was niot economic to build a bridge.

Yes, the Gulf of Suez I believe is one of only three dry ways of crossing the Suez Canal with the other two being the railway bridge and the road tunnel. Google must not regard it as the most direct route through Egypt though.

There is in fact not a single bridge crossing the River Congo between Matadi and Kongolo which probably makes it one of the biggest natural barriers to traversing continental Africa without getting wet.

To save people having to look this up on a map, Matadi is close (130 km) to the mouth of the Congo river while Kongolo is 2200 km to the east of Matadi (3300 km by river) and 280 km west of Lake Tanganyika.

[FosseWay]

Slight variation on the theme - this is supposed to be the world’s longest walk:

https://brilliantmaps.com/longest-walk/

Presumably ferries must be permitted for the route as it appears to cross the Gulf of Suez on the way through Egypt. I also seem to recall that it is difficult, but not impossible, to find a "dry route" between Sudan and Egypt.

You just need to take Moses with you and have the Egyptian authorities pursuing you...

[AndrewGPaul]

Can you cross the Bering Strait of foot at any point? You could then walk from South Africa to the southern end of Argentina. That would end up being about 40,000 km.

[Euan]

Can you cross the Bering Strait of foot at any point? You could then walk from South Africa to the southern end of Argentina. That would end up being about 40,000 km.

Could you physically cross the Bering Strait on foot? -- Maybe*

Could you legally cross the Bering Strait on foot? -- No**

*As I understand it the ocean currents in the strait can prevent parts of the sea from freezing over, although sometimes large sheets of ice may be positioned in such a way that makes a dry crossing doable.

**Same applies even if you were to cross the strait in a boat. It would be virtually impossible to enter Russia via the Bering Strait without being arrested or detained and sent back to Alaska. I think in more recent times the Russian authorities have cracked down hard on illegal entry through the back door.

The other problem is that on both the Alaskan side and the Russian side you would have to contend with hundreds of miles with no roads or settlements connecting to the rest of the world. For a walk taking you all the way down through Argentina, you've also got the Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia through which there are no roads and only very dense jungle.

[B1018 A120 M11]

As you may know, UK ex-paratrooper Karl Bushby crossed the Bering Strait on foot from Alaska to Russia in (I think) 2006, as part of his on-going 21-year walk home from Punta Arenas in Chile, South America, back to Hull in the UK. But his story has not been without great difficulties and challenges. Frankly, he's been lucky to survive on several occasions.

If you're not familiar with Karl, he's on-line these days at https://www.facebook.com/Karl.Bushby.odysseyXXI. Basically, having flown there, he set off from the tip of Chile in 1998 and swore he would not return to the UK other than by walking, and that he would form an unbroken pedestrian trail to get there. Since then, he's walked up through the Americas, including across the potentially lethal Darien Gap in Central America and the Bering Strait from Alaska to Russia, and is currently somewhere in Asia, heading West.

He doesn't allow himself to form his trail back by any method of transport that means he *isn't* walking — so no planes, cars, trains or boats — even self-propelled rowboats are out (I seem to recall this was why he started in Punta Arenas in Chile — you can get further south on landmasses in South America, but you need to cross water to do so — there are no bridges you can walk across). He ran into terrible problems with the authorities in Russia for entering the country via an 'unauthorised transit point' (ie. the Bering Strait — I suppose that's one way of putting it...) and this has slowed his progress tremendously, as for years he was only allowed into Russia for a certain number of days a year. He did have to break his trail a few times (I seem to recall he flew back to the USA and Central America, and walked across the USA from coast to coast to raise money for his trip through Russia, the costs of which have been fearsome)... but each time he returned to the exact point on his Russian journey where he had previously stopped... so you can legitimately say that his trail has been completed in the right order and has remained unbroken, even if he has been forced to take several goes to complete what he's done so far. Since getting through and out of Siberia, the going has been logistically and politically easier. I think he was in Mongolia last year. I'm not sure where he's up to now.

Karl is just an ordinary bloke (some might say he's utterly bonkers... personally I think his story is really amazing, like an Odyssey for modern times) and he has had to raise money for his journey as he has gone along. I became aware of him after his Bering crossing about 13 years ago, which attracted quite a lot of media attention. Back then, he had had a couple of websites which detailed what he'd covered up to then and what his plans were for his route back and return to the UK. But as money has run out at various times, these have disappeared, which is why I'm a bit uncertain as to what and where he's up to now. I think the more limited Facebook page he has now has come about simply because it's free...!

He has a lot of dangers and difficulties yet to face. I seem to recall the original plan was to return to Europe through Russia, but the problems with the authorities there have meant he is having to take a more southerly route into the EU through — I think — Mongolia, China, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Turkey, which is obviously not without — to put it mildly — challenges. When Karl used to have a website with his detailed plans on it, I recall that he said there were only three actual physical barriers to his return to Hull — the Darien Gap, the Bering Strait and the English Channel — and that having nearly died getting over both of the first two, he was determined that he would also survive the third. Can you imagine if he returned to Calais and was told by a bloodless UK immigration official that he could only enter the UK by officially sanctioned train or ferry? (Actually, this is arguably easier to imagine today than perhaps it would have been in 1998 when he started...) Certainly, in theory, no-one is allowed to walk through the Channel Tunnel, which is the only way Karl could get over the Channel while sticking to his self-imposed 'rules'. Years ago, I think he was simply hoping that by dint of simply having got that far on foot, the authorities would agree to waive the rules and let him walk through one of the service and maintenance tunnels. Who knows if that will still be a possibility whenever he finally gets to the North coast of France... assuming he does, of course.

Also, if he is now coming back into Europe via Turkey, it occurs to me that he may have a fourth barrier to negotiate on his route home. As I recall, walking over or through the Bosphorous tunnels or bridges in Istanbul is not allowed by the Turkish authorities either. So he might have a fresh set of problems to deal with to get across the Straits there...

To conclude, I suppose an independently extremely wealthy person might theoretically be financially capable of doing a round-the-world walk more easily (whether they would be physically able is another matter — it sounds as though you don't merely need to be physically extremely fit, you also need to be hard as nails). But actually, and to finally return to topic, I think that Karl's story proves that although a longer global walk from the tip of South America to the South African Cape is theoretically possible, in practice a route like the one he's walking is about at the limits of what is achievable in any one person's lifetime — and given the changes in Russian geopolitics since the mid-2000s, even Karl's Bering crossing might be completely unrepeatable today.

Oh, and clearly, a true round-the-world trip from South America to Africa by *car* is right out...!!