Epic Long Drives
Multi-thousand-kilometre drives across continents — Trans-Siberian, Pan-American, Wild Atlantic Way, and other once-in-a-lifetime routes. 23 curated drives with mapped stops, distance, duration, and route notes — including Route 66, Alaska Highway, Great River Road.
These 23 routes range from 2000 to 7820 km and from 1 to 36 days, across 12 countries. Top picks: Route 66, Alaska Highway, Great River Road.
LegendaryRoute 66The Mother Road. From Chicago to Santa Monica, Route 66 is America's original road trip, neon diners, desert motels, and wide-open sky that defined a nation on wheels.
IconicAlaska HighwayThe ALCAN, built in eight months in 1942 to connect Alaska to the Lower 48, is the last great North American frontier road. 2400km of boreal wilderness, glacial rivers, the Yukon's vast silence, and more wildlife per kilometre than almost anywhere on Earth.
NotableGreat River RoadThe Great River Road follows the Mississippi River through ten states, linking river towns, levee roads, historic downtowns, and wide floodplain scenery. Drive from Itasca State Park in Minnesota to the Gulf coast at Venice, Louisiana for a classic American road trip rich in birdlife, steamboat history, and changing river landscapes.
LegendaryWild Atlantic WayThe world's longest defined coastal route hugs the entire western seaboard of Ireland, sea stacks, clifftop monasteries, stone-walled roads, Gaelic-speaking fishing villages, and pubs where the session never ends.
LegendaryRuta 40Argentina's longest highway traces 5,000 km of the jagged Andes from the shores of the South Atlantic at Punta Loyola through Los Glaciares, Bariloche, Mendoza, Salta, and the Bolivian border at La Quiaca, traversing 20 national parks, crossing 18 major rivers, and climbing over 27 mountain passes. One of the most epic drives on the planet.
LegendaryG318 Sichuan-Tibet HighwayChina's most legendary road climbs from Chengdu's basin through 14 mountain passes above 4,000 m, across four mighty rivers, and into the thin air of Lhasa, the world's highest capital. Called "the most beautiful road on Earth" by Chinese drivers.
LegendaryMongolia: Gobi DesertSouth from Ulaanbaatar into the world's northernmost desert, the Flaming Cliffs where Roy Chapman Andrews discovered the first dinosaur eggs in 1923, the Khongoryn Els singing sand dunes, Yolyn Am's year-round ice canyon, and the nomad ger camps of the Southern Gobi. A 4WD expedition through the emptiest terrain on earth.
NotableCannonball RunThe legendary coast-to-coast dash from the Red Ball Garage on Manhattan to the Portofino Inn on Redondo Beach, dreamed up by Brock Yates in 1971 after the 55mph national speed limit threatened to kill American road culture. Dan Gurney ran it in 35 hours 54 minutes at an average of 80mph. The record stands at just under 26 hours.
NotableChe Guevara, Motorcycle DiariesIn January 1952, Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Alberto Granado left Buenos Aires on a 1947 Norton 500 named La Ponderosa II, riding the lower part of Argentina to San Carlos de Bariloche before struggling through Chile to Santiago. Though the motorcycle was eventually abandoned, retracing the route from Che's birthplace in Rosario reveals the grazing country, Andean crossings, and political awakening that made the man.
IconicDakar Rally TerritoryFollow the world's most demanding rally through the Empty Quarter's boundless ergs, the Hejaz lava fields, and the ancient Nabataean trade routes to Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia at its most elemental and most extreme.
IconicExplorer's Way: Adelaide to DarwinAustralia's great north-south crossing on the Stuart Highway, from Adelaide across the Flinders Ranges to the opal-mining moonscape of Coober Pedy, past the dingo fence into the Red Centre, around Uluru and Kata Tjuta to Alice Springs, north through the Devils Marbles to Katherine Gorge and Darwin. The full traversal of the continent from temperate south to tropical north.
IconicFour Corners CruiseSuper-sized Southwest, from Las Vegas through the Valley of Fire into Utah's slot canyons, across the Colorado Plateau to Monument Valley's prehistoric buttes, then south to the Grand Canyon and back through Red Rock Canyon. Five states, every major landscape of the American Southwest, and what may be the best day hike in North America at Zion.
LegendaryG219 Xinjiang-Tibet HighwayChina’s G219 is a vast trans-Himalayan frontier drive linking Xinjiang with western Tibet through some of Asia’s most isolated country. Expect high passes, stark desert basins, salt lakes, glacier views, and long stretches of military and mining settlements, all demanding careful planning and acclimatization.
LegendaryLake Baikal CircuitThe world's deepest and oldest lake holds one-fifth of Earth's unfrozen fresh water, the circuit around its shores passes through taiga wilderness, shamanic sacred sites on Olkhon Island, the Buryat Buddhist capital of Ulan-Ude, and in winter, a road on the ice itself.
LegendaryLand of Kings, RajasthanThe great Rajasthan circuit from Delhi, through the Pink City of Jaipur, the blue city of Jodhpur below the Mehrangarh Fort, the golden sandstone citadel of Jaisalmer rising from the Thar Desert, and Udaipur's lake palaces reflected in the Pichola. India's most spectacular royal road trip through the land of maharajas.
LegendaryMagadan to Yakutsk Road of BonesThe Road of Bones links Magadan with Yakutsk across one of the harshest inhabited landscapes on Earth, following the old Kolyma Highway through taiga, river valleys, and permafrost country. Expect long empty stretches, rough surfaces, and a raw sense of isolation that makes every settlement feel like an outpost.
LegendaryRoad of BonesBuilt by Gulag prisoners between 1932 and 1953 through the most extreme landscape on Earth, the Kolyma Highway from Magadan to Yakutsk passes through permafrost wilderness, gold-mining ghost towns, and the Pole of Cold at Oymyakon, where temperatures have reached −71°C.
IconicSavannah WayThe Savannah Way links tropical northern Australia from Cairns to Broome through some of the country’s most remote country. Expect long sealed stretches mixed with isolated highways, red-dirt detours, stock country, gulf wetlands, gorge country, and classic outback towns along one of Australia’s great cross-continent drives.
IconicScandi ExplorerThe great Scandinavian road trip through three kingdoms, from Copenhagen's design-forward capital across the Øresund Bridge into Sweden, north through Gothenburg's West Coast seafood, ferry to Oslo's fjord-city glamour, west to Bergen's painted Bryggen wharf and the UNESCO Nærøyfjord, and the dramatic Flåm Railway descent into the world's most spectacular fjord landscape. Northern Europe at its most spectacular.
IconicStuart HighwayAustralia’s legendary north-south spine, the Stuart Highway runs from Adelaide’s fringe to Darwin through red desert, relentless highway horizons, and iconic outback stops. It links Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, and Katherine, delivering a practical road trip through the country’s most expansive inland landscapes.
IconicThe Great Siberian RoadThe road that nobody drives but everybody dreams about, the eastern segment of Russia's Federal Highway from Chita to the Pacific at Vladivostok traverses the Amur taiga, the Chinese border, and Russia's extraordinary Far East, ending at the city where Russia finally meets the sea.
IconicTrans-Canada HighwayCanada’s classic coast-to-coast drive follows the Trans-Canada Highway from St. John’s, Newfoundland, across rugged Atlantic coastlines, Quebec’s river valleys, the vast Canadian Shield, the prairie heartland, and the dramatic mountains of British Columbia before ending at Victoria. It’s a true national road trip with huge scenery shifts and long, open stretches.
IconicUltimate Turkish DelightThe great Anatolian loop from Istanbul, Cappadocia's fairy chimneys and hot air balloons at dawn, Ephesus's Roman ruins (the best-preserved in the world outside of Rome), the Aegean coast's gulet harbours, Pamukkale's calcium-white terraces above ancient Hierapolis, and the return via Ankara's Atatürk mausoleum. A drive through five millennia of history.