Hiking
A walking journey through the wilderness, but on equipped trails, in safety and with relative comfort: hiking can be done in any corner of Europe, in the mountains and forests, along the seashore and rivers.
Skeptics will say: with proper effort and preparation, you can walk anywhere. And they would be partly right. But here we are not talking about moving through impenetrable swamps and dense forest thickets. Even in the first half of the last century, modern requirements for pedestrian natural paths were developed. First, they must be cleared and prepared: a clearly visible trail is established along the planned route, it is cleared of vegetation and other natural obstacles, and where necessary, steps may even be made to facilitate descent and ascent on slopes, or walkways over wet and marshy areas. Secondly, such routes must be marked, meaning they should not only have navigation signs but also, say, signs providing information about the surroundings. Finally, if the trail leads away from populated areas, there should be rest areas, means of communication with the outside world, and other things that allow a traveler in trouble to be found and rescued.
Hiking is a short name for a walking trip through rough terrain using prepared trails with markers. Hiking is accessible to everyone—from students to retirees—and every year more people in Europe engage in it. "A trip to nature," as the Czechs call it, allows you to stretch your stiff muscles, see landscapes inaccessible from highways, encounter wild animals, and hear silence.
And at the same time—remain safe on a specially equipped trail, often starting and ending at a café or pub.
The "inventor" of hiking in its current understanding is considered to be Philipp Bussemer, who lived in Baden-Baden at the end of the 19th century. He opened the world's first tourist information center next to his haberdashery store. By that time, walks along forest trails in the surrounding Black Forest of Baden-Baden were becoming increasingly popular, and Bussemer was the first to think of selling tourists maps of pedestrian trails, indicating the locations of restaurants, viewpoints, and rest areas.
Today, all of Europe is covered with equipped pedestrian trails, and hiking maps are available at every tourist center. There are routes for a couple of hours, as well as those lasting several days or even a month. Most often, Europeans go out into nature for the weekend and walk 5 to 15 kilometers in a day.
One of the first and perhaps the most famous hiking trails in the world is the Appalachian Trail in the USA, which runs through the Appalachian Mountains from north to south, from Maine to Georgia (3500 km).
Interestingly, the plans to lay a hiking trail were finally formulated back in 1921, but it was fully opened to travelers only in 1937. Thus, the work on the trail took 16 years, which remains a normal timeframe for such an undertaking even today.
Long trails are considered those longer than 50 km. There are special websites and mobile applications: among the free ones are AllTrails, Hiking Project, and Wikiloc with maps and hiking routes. PeakFinder AR or Peakvisor (which show the names of mountain peaks that the smartphone camera is pointed at) and iNaturalist (which provides information about plants encountered along the way) will also be useful.
In our ranking, all are just like that. However, if we had decided to create a ranking of the longest hiking routes on the planet, it would have been too boring: it would have included only American, European, and Japanese routes, so we decided to choose the longest trail on each continent—this way it turns out fairer and more exciting.
Europe: Route E4 — 12,000 km
Long walks in nature became fashionable in Europe back in the late 18th century. The first European hiking route of the modern type appeared in Hungary in 1938, and at the beginning of this century, the European Association of Hiking Tourists identified 12 long-distance European paths with a total length of almost 55,000 km, partially composed of already existing national routes. The longest of these European hiking routes, E4, starts in the Spanish town of Tarifa, located on the shores of the Strait of Gibraltar, and ends in Larnaca, Cyprus. The path passes through Andorra, French Grenoble, ascends into the Alps, crosses Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, and leads to Budapest, Belgrade, and Sofia. On some sections in Romania and Bulgaria, work is still underway to equip the trail, so there is a detour route through Serbia.
The section of the E4 route through the Lechtaler Alps in Western Austria is one of the most challenging. Travelers have to climb to an altitude of about 2500 meters.
A competitor to the E-routes on the continent is the Italian Sentiero Italia system, which has a total length of 6166 km.
This trail can confidently be called grandiose. Passing through the entire Alpine arc, the route eventually descends to Sicily, skirts the western coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea towards Sardinia, and ends in the ancient city of Tibula. The trail was opened in 1995, and it will take you about 8 months to complete it.
Asia: Hokkaido Nature Trail — 4585 km
The longest prepared routes in Asia, ranging from three to four thousand kilometers, are laid out across the Japanese islands. Japan is a true paradise for long-distance walking enthusiasts, as five out of the ten longest hiking trails in the world run through its territory, with the longest being the Hokkaido Nature Trail, which, as you might guess, passes through glaciers and forests, past volcanoes and lakes on the island of Hokkaido.
On this northernmost of the Japanese islands, there is a very short summer and a long cold winter, which you will inevitably encounter, as the journey will take you about seven months.
The developed system of hiking trails in Japan is the result of the national love for nature and walking.
Japan's main competitor in Asia in terms of attractiveness and length of hiking routes is Nepal and its gem—the Great Himalayan Trail. The longest and highest mountain trail in the world crosses the entire Himalayan range from Kashmir to Tibet. This route is for the most ambitious hikers and passes through the territories of India, Nepal, and Bhutan. The route has an upper and a lower path. The first—Nepalese section—is frankly extreme, over 1700 kilometers long, including sections at an altitude of over six kilometers above sea level. It is the most challenging and poses a serious challenge even for extremely experienced hikers. The lower route is shorter (1500 km or 100 days of travel), mainly passes through green valleys and villages, allowing you to get acquainted with the culture of the country, rather than the harsh and cruel, though uniquely beautiful, highlands.
A special pleasure is to observe the distant Nepalese villages located on the slopes of mountains and hills at an altitude of a couple of thousand meters.
You should only go here if you have mountaineering experience, as the trail ascends to an incredible 6146 meters.
North America: Trans-Canada Trail — 24,000 km
A quarter of a century ago, a small group of volunteers accomplished the incredible, prompting people and the Canadian government to invest efforts and finances into creating The Great Trail.
Today, "The Great Trail" is the longest pedestrian and cycling route in the world, stretching 24,134 kilometers through 13 provinces and 15,000 settlements, with the highest point of the route reaching an altitude of 2,185 meters. There are also water sections totaling 7000 km, which are suggested to be traversed by boat.
It stretches from the city of St. John's on the eastern coast of Newfoundland (Atlantic) to the city of Victoria on Vancouver Island (Pacific). The trail, like all other mega-routes, consists of a system of shorter roads connected together and unified by common navigation, as well as specially built links between them.
Impressive, considering it all started with the initiative of a few people in 1992!
The Great Trail passes through several national parks, including the oldest in Canada—Banff National Park, established in 1885.
A competitor to the Trans-Canada Trail is the Great Western Loop, located in the western USA, with a length of just over 11,000 km. It passes through the Grand Canyon, the Mojave and Sonoran deserts, the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains, as well as through 12 national parks and several climate zones. The loop consists of five world-famous hiking trails, including the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail. So far, only one person has completed the entire Great Western Loop: American Andrew Skurka in 2007 covered the specified thousands of kilometers in 208 days, walking an average of 53 kilometers daily.
Central and South America: Greater Patagonian Trail — 3000 km
The longest route on the continent is the Greater Patagonian Trail, stretching from north to south from the capital of Chile, Santiago, to the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, covered by the second-largest glacier in the world outside the poles. The path is laid along the slopes of the Andes and sometimes crosses the Argentine border. Travelers can see forests of slender araucarias, lifeless lava fields, hot springs, and snow-white mountain peaks along the way.
The Greater Patagonian Trail also passes through the Chilean national park Torres del Paine in the Cordillera.
If you prefer heat, lush vegetation, and shorter routes—head for the TransPanama Trail. Anyone who has traveled through the tropics will confirm the very harsh local conditions. Dense and humid jungles, full of mosquitoes and other blood-sucking creatures, are just waiting for you to start this journey. It's only 800 kilometers, part of which runs through the Darién National Park.
Along the way, a lot of interesting things await you. From the border of Colombia and Costa Rica, you will soon enter the territories of local tribes like the Kuna and Emberá. You will also have the chance to canoe through the waters of the tropical forests and follow in the footsteps of the conquistadors who were here 600 years ago. The entire TransPanama Trail will take you more than three months.
Australia and Oceania: The Bicentennial National Trail — 5330 km
The longest hiking route in Australia stretches 5330 km along the Australian Great Dividing Range and the western edge of the continent almost to Melbourne—through rainforests, meadows, past gold and copper mines developed by the first settlers, through several national parks.
Some sections of the route were once trails used by colonists to explore the continent and drive cattle. If you decide to follow in their footsteps, the entire history of the colonization of the Green Continent will unfold before your eyes.
The longest Australian trail passes by the highest mountain on the continent—Kosciuszko.
A competitor to this route in the region is the Te Araroa Trail, which crosses both New Zealand islands from the southernmost point to the northernmost and stretches 3000 km.
The landscapes of New Zealand can hardly disappoint—mountain ranges, capes, and glaciers form an impressive panorama. The Te Araroa Trail—"long path" in Maori—crosses most of these natural beauties. Normally, this route will take you about three months to complete. Ultramarathoner Jez Bragg completed it in 53 days.
Africa: Baker's Trail — 805 km
The most well-equipped and safest hiking trails in Africa are laid out in South Africa. And the longest of them—"The Rim of Africa"—runs along the mountain range at the southern tip of the continent, just north of Cape Town. The length of the path is about 600 km. But there is a longer trail on the continent—the "Historical Route of Sir Samuel and Lady Florence Baker," or simply Baker's Trail, named after the explorer of the Nile basin and his wife, who lived in the 19th century. True adventurers will surely be inspired by the pioneering spirit of this historical route, following in the footsteps of the first Europeans who reached Lake Albert in East Africa 150 years ago and named it after the husband of Queen Victoria. The trail, about 800 km long, begins near Juba, the capital of South Sudan, on the banks of the Nile, heads south through the savannah to Uganda, and passes along unique natural features such as Lake Albert and the 43-meter Kabarega Falls at the point where the Nile flows into Lake Victoria.
In Uganda, on the shores of Lake Albert, there is Murchison Falls National Park, which is home to Rothschild's giraffes—the rarest on the planet.
Parts of the route in South Sudan can be quite dangerous due to extreme poverty and years of civil war in the country, while the Ugandan part of the journey is much calmer—there you can truly feel like a pioneering explorer of Africa, especially if you remember that the trail retraces the route of the Bakers themselves, meaning the travelers of the 1860s and 1870s.