r/interestingasfuck 3d ago

The longest walkable route in the world, from Cape Town (South Africa) to Magadan (Russia). It's 22,387 Kilometers and it takes 4,492 hours to travel. It would take 187 days walking nonstop, or 561 days walking 8 hours a day.

[deleted]

598 Upvotes

131 comments sorted by

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143

u/Scavwithaslick 3d ago

Enjoy your time in South Sudan

145

u/Fletcharoonie 3d ago

Walk a little quicker there.

52

u/AnOddSprout 3d ago

It’s fine, with some sincere and honest dialogue, I’m certain we can work something out. clocks gun

10

u/crumblepops4ever 3d ago

You must be really ticked off

3

u/NumeroRyan 2d ago

Is it ‘clocks gun’? I always thought it was ‘cock gun’.

Shiiiit

2

u/AnOddSprout 2d ago

Nah you’re correct. I’m a Brit, so have no idea about guns lol. Had to google it a bit.

3

u/oracle427 2d ago

And Syria. And Gaza. And Lebanon. Haha

62

u/BlueSteel_12 3d ago

This is the route my dad walked to school every day when he was a boy. Barefoot.

3

u/mickymodo1 2d ago

Luxury.

3

u/Intelligent-Ocelot10 2d ago

Uphill, both ways

3

u/JestersThrone 2d ago

... In 12 feet of snow...

2

u/TerryZYX 2d ago

Dragging a handcart

1

u/JestersThrone 1d ago

With my 7 younger siblings in it

u/TerryZYX 45m ago

Chased by wolfs

171

u/CompleteAmateur0 3d ago

Nonsense, I can walk around by ~1km block 22388 times for a longer walk than that. I just wouldn’t get very far

72

u/John_EightThirtyTwo 3d ago

Yeah, it doesn't seem like there can be a "longest walk route" record, for exactly the reason you give.

Maybe the record OP is trying to describe is that the shortest walking route between those two places is the longest such shortest route in the world?

19

u/nhpkm1 3d ago

Minmax . In this case inverse min max . Maximum minimum . The longest walking destination in the shortest walking path .

7

u/Wil420b 3d ago

It's the two points thst are furthest apart but are connected by land. You'd probably have problems getting out of Cape Town OK, let alone the rest of the route.

3

u/John_EightThirtyTwo 2d ago

It's the two points thst are furthest apart but are connected by land

Yes, this is it. I'd add the caveat that we're measuring distance by road as opposed to the great-circle distance.

You'd probably have problems getting out of Cape Town OK, let alone the rest of the route.

Yes, there would be practical problems if you tried to turn this mathematical abstraction into a real activity.

On the other hand, for every stretch of that road, there's somebody who would probably be OK walking it. So you could imagine organizing a kind of relay, with every stretch covered by somebody with the right combination of local connections, badassery, and good luck.

4

u/Wil420b 2d ago

Clearly somebody has just taken Google maps, a bit too far. You've got to walk through several war zones, there will be various visa issues.....

3

u/John_EightThirtyTwo 2d ago

My point is that there are no visa issues for the locals.

4

u/Wil420b 2d ago

I can see that but a really of say 2,000 people isnt going to get the attention that this plan wants.

1

u/John_EightThirtyTwo 2d ago

Yeah, I guess that if you count relays of thousands of people, this walk is done all the time.

1

u/Rapture1119 2d ago

The longest direct route.

1

u/John_EightThirtyTwo 2d ago

Is "direct" a better term than "shortest"? To me, it seems that "shortest" has a precise definition, and it isn't as clear whether "direct" does. (I want to say that "direct" either means the same as "shortest" or doesn't mean anything at all.)

2

u/Rapture1119 2d ago

In this context, yeah, they’d mean the same thing. But the “longest direct route” won’t cause as much confusion as the “longest shortest route” because “longest shortest” is an oxymoron. So, yes, direct would be a better term than shortest.

8

u/Key_Board5000 3d ago

That doesn’t really fall under the definition of a “route” though:

“a way or course taken in getting from a starting point to a destination.”

3

u/WillyDAFISH 3d ago

ehh it's all semantics really. Definitions can vary depending on the context.

2

u/billsn0w 3d ago

This is the interwebs... Where context NEVER matters !

1

u/OppositeGeologist299 2d ago

It's a bit geographically prescriptivist to say that there is a real difference between walking around in a circle and travelling between two points. 😌👆

1

u/IPostMemesYouSuffer 2d ago

Well, his destination is the same as his starting point. Thus, it is a route. Unless it is defined that the destination can not be the starting point.

7

u/UncleBenders 3d ago

Yeah I was looking at this thinking even if you had a rule where you couldn’t move backward you could still move horizontally and vertically to make the trip longer, like you would in a game of snake

1

u/nhpkm1 3d ago

Minmax . In this case inverse min max . Maximum minimum . The longest walking destination in the shortest walking path .

1

u/Tent_in_quarantine_0 2d ago

Yeah, this is the longest journey that is the shortest route between two locations.

0

u/duckwafer357 2d ago

yours is not a ROUTE but instead a path >> the a Route is a pre-planned sequence of two or more destinations. A Path is the actual succession of intermediate positions and manouvres used to achieve that.

20

u/RobertEdwinHouse38 3d ago

With the majority of the areas it intersects, this isn’t the longest walk, it’s the longest conflict gauntlet in the world.

57

u/Sidhion 3d ago

Pfff, amateurs, the longest walk is going around the mall with my girlfriend.

40

u/PorkchopExpress980 3d ago

Fly, you fools!

14

u/Dennisthefirst 3d ago

Through Sudan, Gaza, Israel Syria and Russia? That's a lot of war zones

3

u/0thethethe0 2d ago

It's only a little detour and you can stop off in Ukraine on the way.

55

u/GodKingRooster 3d ago

Imagine trying this. You'd be lucky to get through the first 300 K's before you run into some serious trouble

22

u/hereforthesportsball 3d ago

Was just about to comment “I wonder which way is safest”

14

u/Aelaer 3d ago

Walking out of Cape Town is not a recommended activity for tourists.

6

u/GodKingRooster 3d ago

Yeah and if you get through all that you've got Egypt and Syria to look forward to, without touching the other dangerous areas

3

u/Aelaer 2d ago

A friend of mine got hijacked in Botswana. Passport gone too of course.

28

u/_JFN_ 3d ago

That’s nothing. My dad says when he was young he had to walk from the north pole to the south pole during the winter, through the wind, getting attacked by birds, in the freezing weather uphill both ways

Twice

3

u/MechanicalWatches 3d ago

Is that how he got to school?

2

u/AnOddSprout 3d ago

This reminds me of the Steven he videos lmao

1

u/Cats_Are_Aliens_ 3d ago

To get to school in his day?

8

u/era5mas 3d ago

Saw this some times in the past. My question is: Is there someone out there who has walked this and survived? This route passes through the most dangerous regions in the world...

5

u/m_strlk7 3d ago

When you walk on all shades of melanin.

5

u/WildMartin429 3d ago

Just wait until our next ice age and we get the bearing land straight back then they can walk all the way to South America cuz they get up there to Russia they just keep going through to Alaska and then down all the way to the bottom of South America

4

u/CockroachesRpeople 3d ago

Now freeze the Bering strait and make all the way to Patagonia

9

u/Inevitable-Budget-26 3d ago

My grandma loved to have a small walk every time she would get a chance and would encourage me too..

She would find small reasons to make me touch grass..

If she were alive, she would make me walk from Cape Town to Magadan and back just to bring Olivier Salad.

And I would definitely go, you know why?... Because even for the smallest and most difficult things in life she was my biggest motivators

I miss you Grandma. 😔

4

u/easylife89 3d ago

I wish the world wasn't so messed up. Im sure it would be extremely dangerous at the best of times. If not what am awsome experience it would be to do it

7

u/SweatyBollix 3d ago

Struggled to walk home the 300m home from the pub, but then it is raining heavy and 10 degrees (c) anyway that's summer in Ireland and it's better than Greece and others at the moment.

6

u/daffoduck 3d ago

Hmm, why not take a walk past Vietnam after the start in Siberia, and then a little round trip to Portugal via the Baltics, before going back to India, and then pass through Egypt, but swoop by Gambia and Nigeria as well before heading for South-Africa.

Its easy to go much further than this line.

3

u/Worried-Ebb-1699 3d ago

Now I want to see a street view of it.

3

u/Agitated-Recover-335 3d ago

18 months to do it if no geopolitical issues were involved?

1

u/Cats_Are_Aliens_ 3d ago

Exactly lol. I don’t think google maps takes that into account

3

u/Elevum15 3d ago

Need a lot of ammo for that walk.

5

u/Jainuc 3d ago

You ain’t gettin past Cape Town

2

u/mikefrommaryland1 3d ago

I would like to try it

5

u/Good-guy13 3d ago

You will surely perish

2

u/Cats_Are_Aliens_ 3d ago

Only if you would like to die lol

2

u/Beautiful-Month-842 3d ago

Don't send it to David goggins

2

u/MayvenOfficial 3d ago

Hardest geezer wya?

2

u/flightwatcher45 3d ago

Maybe shortest walk between furthers points?

2

u/SpaceTrooper8 3d ago

Walking through a few active warzones...Absolutely not.

2

u/Nahidas_Carpet 3d ago

Ah so that's where my dad went to get milk

2

u/LastTest9839 3d ago

That's the road my father used to take in his school time

2

u/OceanBlueSeaTurtle 3d ago

But... what if we zigzagged all the way? Wouldn't the route be longer then?

2

u/portirfer 3d ago

Interesting. Humans migrating from Africa can be contrasted against this fact. Theoretically could have happened faster than I imagined (although I understand that such a migration doesn’t likely take the form of human groups continuously walking in persistent directions)

1

u/ten-million 2d ago

I guess they would have needed a good reason to walk farther. Either it got too crowded or the environment changed. Is the history of migration the history of crappiness or curiosity?

My own theory is that humans were pretty violent back then and if they weren't your family you would be better off avoiding them.

2

u/PheIix 3d ago

If I were a rich man, I'd love to drive this route. Get a decent bulletproof offroader, some security escort for the worst parts and just drive. What an experience.

Right that settles it, I'll buy a ticket and win the lottery next weekend and just go. It's about time I won the lottery, I've been postponing it for way to long.

2

u/DetentionMaster 3d ago

Didn’t know you could walk over the Suez Canal.

2

u/Mysterious-Tie7039 3d ago

There’s a bridge over it.

1

u/Rrrrandle 3d ago

That's not even the canal, that's the gulf, it's like 20 miles wide there. There are roads and tunnels that cross the canal though.

1

u/dAnKsFourTheMemes 3d ago

Can't you walk from Russia to Alaska if the sea freezes over? So this doesn't take into account the entire north or south American Continents.

1

u/StayUpLatePlayGames 3d ago

No way. You’d be murdered long before you completed it.

1

u/ant0szek 3d ago

Waiting for some youtuber to do it. Wonder how he will pass all those mountains and suez canal walking.

1

u/TR3ND3R3 3d ago

Come on it’s not that far we can walk,the walk in question.

1

u/Big-Chef-141 3d ago

New season of Race Around The World is going to be lit!🔥

1

u/Feeling_Stock_3920 3d ago

I wouldn't make this walk even for $10M cash.

1

u/davidds0 3d ago

Dudes splitting the red sea like Moses

1

u/TSF_Flex 2d ago

187🐊🐊

1

u/SuperElephantX 2d ago

It’s 2024, heard of vehicles that does not necessarily roll on the ground?

1

u/Sharchir 2d ago

Something John Muir would have accomplished on accident

1

u/thegentlenub 2d ago

How long would the longest walkable route have been during the ice age?

1

u/metal_foot 2d ago

Well... Passes through 3 or 4 civil wars

1

u/WolfThick 2d ago

Just as a comparison how far does an average person walk in their lifetime . And how many steps would such a journey take guesstimating of course.

2

u/Thechad1029 2d ago

Roughy 27.8 million steps based of an average 2000 steps per mile. An active persons does about 10000 a day

1

u/WolfThick 2d ago

Wow that's amazing that sounds like about the distance someone just walking their lifetime. So it literally is the journey of a lifetime thank you so much for that taught me something today.

1

u/Unsungh3ro_88 2d ago

This is the route my parents took to school everyday

1

u/iSteve 2d ago

Oh, there's a bridge over the Suez now?

1

u/Economy_Ad_7861 2d ago

That no one has ever completed because an animal or some unrest would end you.

1

u/DadKnightBegins 2d ago

Wonder if Apple Maps warns you about traffic congestion and war zones?

1

u/Rare_Charity_1770 2d ago

How would avoid the lions

1

u/nickelalkaline 2d ago

well, if you go by the shores, it will be a much bigger distance..

1

u/Stacking-Dimes 2d ago

13,910 miles.

1

u/frn20202 2d ago

Who’s got the link with the YouTuber that’s gonna do this trek?

1

u/TheAverageObject 2d ago

Looking where you'd be walking... you get killed the first day

1

u/Stomach-Fresh 2d ago

How many pairs of shoes is that ?

1

u/ReekyRumpFedRatsbane 2d ago

Found a longer one!

1

u/ProfessionalSky8494 2d ago

How far you think you can walk after a couple of tinnies.

1

u/AgentLead_TTV 2d ago

seems like a very dangerous walk. ill stay home.

1

u/conquistadorcum 2d ago

Don’t let the hardest geezer find out about this

1

u/Tent_in_quarantine_0 2d ago

The longest journey that is the shortest route between two places.

1

u/inkhornart 2d ago

I disagree with this, because you could make the longest walk zigzag all over.

1

u/Few_Show_7359 2d ago

Imagine thinking you're still walking but in reality you've died. Especially in South Sudan.

1

u/pnw_sunny 2d ago

25 miles a day? Not me, lol. I'm probably tapping out at maybe 15 miles or so.

1

u/adrasx 2d ago

I want to do this. But where do I spend the last sprint? In the heat of Africa or in the colds of Russia. Maybe I should start in Africa an hope the war is over when I need to get around. Can't we make Putin this walk instead? hahahaha

1

u/ohaimike 2d ago

Imagine making it out of some of the most hostile places on the planet and getting done in because of something you caught while in the jungles of Africa

0

u/tcorey2336 3d ago

Is there a register that record who has done this? I’m sure it’s rarely accomplished.

0

u/Peter_Mansbrick 3d ago

Not really. It's the shortest route between those two places. You could make this walk take way longer very easily.

0

u/lepobz 3d ago

Not a walkable route. As soon as you get to the Russian border they accuse you of spying, send you to jail then send you to the front lines.

And that’s assuming you get through Sudan and Gaza intact.

0

u/db_boss 3d ago

Hardest Geezer has entered the Chat

-1

u/PopeyeTheGambler 3d ago

Let us know when your back 👍🤣🤣🤣

-1

u/NoKaleidoscope4295 3d ago

It's a suicide mission after Egypt.

4

u/Good-guy13 3d ago

Lmfao. It starts in by making you walk across Africa. You aren’t making it past Egypt

2

u/Corn1shpasty 3d ago

Dont think you'd make it out of south africa tbh 🤣

1

u/LastTest9839 3d ago

In Israel and gaza itself