No matter what country we live in, we’ve all fantasized about taking our own great American road trip, considering a variety of the infinitely many possible routes. The most obvious would be driving between Los Angeles and New York, a distance of 2,800 miles that would take a bit over 40 hours straight through. I myself once took a more southerly route, road-tripping from Los Angeles to Raleigh, North Carolina over a week or two; these days, I dream of an east-coast journey from Maine all the way down to Key West, a relatively manageable 1,900 miles. But if you take your road-tripping seriously, you’ve got to go to another continent entirely.
Such is the conclusion to be drawn from the Half as Interesting video above, which finds the longest drivable distance on Earth. “The North American road system goes as far as Prudhoe Bay in Canada’s Canada, Alaska, and as far south as Yaviza in Panama,” says the video’s creator Sam Denby, “but this only clocks in at 7,500 miles.”
That may require six straight days of driving, but it doesn’t set any records. A route from southern Africa and east Asia may seem promising, but they can’t be driven without passing through western Europe. That requires passage across the Mediterranean on a ferry, which — for the true road-tripper — taints the purity of the endeavor.
Starting in Europe, then, you should begin in Sagres, Portugal, “the most extreme point on the contiguous road network.” From there, you can drive as far east as “the banks of the Aldan River in Russia,” a distance of 8,437 miles. But wait, there’s longer: you could keep going to Khasan, “the only Russian town to border North Korea,” and bring the mileage up to 8,726, thus completing “the longest direct driving route in the world.” If you go pedal-to-the-metal (to the extent possible while observing local speed limits, anyway) it will take six days and 19 hours — bookended, ideally, by one meal of cataplana and another of Khasan oysters.
Related content:
Why Route 66 Became America’s Most Famous Road
12 Classic Literary Road Trips in One Handy Interactive Map
A Brief History of the Great American Road Trip
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.
