Guide
The longest great driving roads in the world
Some roads are a corner; others are a journey. These are the longest single drives in our catalogue, the routes that fill a day or spill into the next, ranked by distance. Every mile is measured from the real road, so the numbers are honest.
Duku Highway327 mi · 14 h 49 min · 36 hairpinsView the roadbook ›
Distance
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1
327 mi14 h 49 min
Duku Highway
China’s most scenic highway, and one of the great long drives on earth. The Duku, G217, runs 561 km south from Dushanzi across the Tianshan to the edge of the Tarim Basin, and the wonder is the sheer variety packed into the distance: the Dushanzi Grand Canyon, the tunnel at Haxilegen Pass near 3,460 m, the vast Bayanbulak grassland, desert ridges and snow peaks, all in a single road. This is a whole expedition rather than a drive. Open only in the warmer months when the passes are clear. Give it two unhurried days, and treat the length as the point.
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264 mi10 h 14 minLeh–Manali Highway
Long in every dimension, distance, altitude and difficulty. Four hundred and seventy-nine kilometres from the Kullu Valley to Leh across five Himalayan passes, much of it above 4,000 m on unpaved surfaces with water crossings, this is a two-day expedition where the road is the destination. Length here is not a coastal cruise but a sustained ordeal at altitude through some of the most savage terrain on earth. Drive it in the short summer window, in a prepared vehicle with spare fuel, acclimatise properly, and treat the whole traverse as one of the hardest great journeys any road offers.
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3
245 mi7 h 28 minBlå Vägen
Sweden’s Blue Road, a 460 km glide from mountain to sea. The E12 descends from Hemavan in Lapland, southern trailhead of the Kungsleden, eastward through Tärnaby and Storuman to the Bothnian coast at Umeå, following the Ume River that gives the road its name past lake after lake through deep wilderness. This is long-distance driving at its most serene, no hairpins or high passes, just endless forest, water and northern light unspooling for hundreds of kilometres. Drive it in the long summer days, break the journey by a lake, and let the sheer restful length of the Blue Road do its work.
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222 mi6 h 46 minVildmarksvägen (Wilderness Road)
The Nordics' great wilderness road trip, 360 km through the far north. Vildmarksvägen runs from Strömsund via Gäddede and the bare Stekenjokk plateau to Vilhelmina, crossing Stekenjokk at around 876 m as Sweden’s highest fully paved through-road, stringing together waterfalls, forest, the Norwegian border and open reindeer country. It is a whole expedition rather than a pass, a route measured in days and memories rather than corners. The Stekenjokk section is snow-gated and opens only in summer. Drive it with an overnight in the wild, north to south, and treat it as Scandinavia’s answer to the great overland routes.
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193 mi6 h 45 minPamir Highway
Overland legend measured in hundreds of empty kilometres. The M41 crosses the roof of Central Asia between Khorog and beyond, cresting Ak-Baital at 4,655 m, the length its defining feature: fuel stops two hundred kilometres apart, hours without another vehicle, a broken Soviet ribbon across a plateau that looks borrowed from another planet. This is distance as isolation, one of the longest genuinely remote drives left on earth. Take spares, take cash, take days. Drive it in summer and early autumn only, respect the altitude, and understand why the Pamir Highway is the stuff of every overlander’s dreams.
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176 mi6 h 9 minSichuan–Tibet Highway
A day’s drive that crosses a civilisation’s boundary. This 285 km section of the mighty G318, itself one of the longest roads in the world, climbs from Kangding over the Zheduo Pass at 4,298 m to Litang, and in that single long day you pass from Chinese Sichuan onto the Tibetan plateau, the grasslands of Kham opening around you. It is a fragment of a road that runs thousands of kilometres, but a complete journey in itself. Drive it acclimatised in the warmer months, stop in the poplar valley of Xinduqiao, and take the long climb onto the roof of the world at its own pace.
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173 mi6 h 42 minSpiti Valley Road
Two hundred and seventy-five kilometres through a cold desert, and every one of them hard-won. NH505 follows the Spiti gorge from Khab Sangam through the monastery villages of Nako, Tabo and Kaza, over the 4,551 m Kunzum La and down to the Leh-Manali road, much of it unpaved and clinging to cliffs. The length is inseparable from the difficulty: this is days of remote, high, rough driving through one of the emptiest inhabited landscapes on earth. Drive it in the short summer window, in a capable vehicle, break the journey among the gompas, and treat the whole traverse with the seriousness the distance and altitude demand.
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8
165 mi5 h 15 minRoute 132 Gaspé Coast
The long way round a peninsula, with the sea always on one side. This eastern arc of Quebec’s Route 132 runs 265 km from Sainte-Anne-des-Monts along the St Lawrence shore beneath the Chic-Choc mountains, rounding the Gaspé past Forillon to the great limestone monolith of Percé Rock. It is long-distance coastal touring at its finest, cliff edges and river mouths and fishing villages strung along a shore that slowly opens from river to gulf to open Atlantic. Drive it unhurried over a day or two, stop at the capes and coves, and finish at Percé where the road and the land run out together.
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157 mi5 h 30 minKarakoram Highway
A hundred and fifty-seven miles through the collision of three great ranges. From Gilgit the highway threads the Hunza gorge to the Khunjerab Pass at 4,693 m, and the length is filled edge to edge with mountain: Rakaposhi, the Passu Cones, Nanga Parbat, sheer rock on one side and the river far below on the other. This is not distance to be hurried through but savoured, the centrepiece of one of the planet’s great road journeys. Open April to November, with landslides routine. Drive it slowly up the valley, overnight in Hunza, and let the sheer sustained grandeur unfold at its own pace.
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10
148 mi4 h 31 minDempster Highway
Canada’s road to the Arctic, 736 km of lonely gravel. The Dempster strikes north from the Klondike near Dawson City as an all-weather gravel road, climbing through the Tombstone ranges and out onto open tundra on the long run that crosses the Arctic Circle toward the Mackenzie delta. This is length as genuine remoteness, a wilderness road where services are a hundred kilometres apart and the tundra runs to the horizon. Carry spare tyres, fuel and supplies. Drive it in summer under the midnight sun, take days over it, and treat one of North America’s great gravel expeditions with real preparation.
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143 mi4 h 59 minRoute 13: Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang
The mountain section of National Route 13 between Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang is one of Southeast Asia’s most dramatic highland drives, climbing from limestone karst to the 1,400 m Phoukhoune plateau before descending to the Mekong.
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12
137 mi2 h 55 minGlenn Highway
Alaska on a grand scale, glaciers strung along the miles. The Glenn Highway runs 136 miles from Anchorage past the Matanuska Glacier, which you can see calving from the road, through the Chugach and toward the Wrangell mountains, an All-American Road where the length delivers a steady procession of ice, river and peak. This is the accessible face of Alaskan distance driving, big and wild but paved and open, twenty minutes from a city at one end. Drive it in summer when the light runs all day, stop at the Matanuska Glacier viewpoints, and let the sheer scale of the Alaskan miles sink in.
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13
135 mi4 h 44 minOaxaca to the Pacific
Two hundred and sixty kilometres of relentless variety across the Sierra Madre. From Oaxaca city the road rises through agave country to a 2,970 m pass near Suchixtepec where the forest turns to high pine, then drops canyon after canyon through cloud forest and jungle to the Pacific at Pochutla. The length is filled with change: mountain, forest, five hundred and seventy-nine corners, a whole cross-section of southern Mexico in a single demanding day. Drive it in the drier months, allow the full day it deserves, mind the endless curves on the descent, and finish where the mountains meet the Pacific surf.
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14
128 mi4 h 29 minGilgit–Skardu Road
Blasted into the vertical walls of the Indus gorge, this nerve-racking drive is the sole road link between Skardu and the outside world.
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127 mi2 h 50 minIcefields Parkway
Lake Louise to Jasper past the Columbia Icefield, over Bow Summit and Sunwapta Pass, with glacier-fed lakes and 3,000-metre peaks for company the whole way.
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16
125 mi4 h 21 minMae Hong Son Loop
Thailand’s most celebrated mountain highway runs 245 km from Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son via Pai, through remote hill-tribe country on continuous switchbacks.
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123 mi4 h 6 minGamsberg Pass
Namibia’s longest mountain pass, 192 km of gravel from Windhoek across the Great Escarpment at nearly 1,900 m, descending through the Kuiseb valley to the edge of the Namib, with no towns and no tarmac.
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18
117 mi2 h 30 minRichardson Highway
Valdez over Thompson Pass, waterfalls, glaciers and record snow.
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115 mi2 h 35 minSeward Highway
Anchorage to Seward between glacier cliffs and a tidal arm.
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20
113 mi3 h 27 minEast Coast Pacific Highway
Taiwan’s Highway 11, the Hualien–Taitung Coastal Highway, runs 177 km of unspoiled east coast where the Central Mountain Range plunges straight into the Pacific.
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21
113 mi3 h 27 minAvenue of the Volcanoes
Named by Humboldt in 1802, the 200 km Inter-Andean corridor between Quito and Riobamba is flanked by unbroken chains of snow-capped volcanoes, more major peaks from one road than almost anywhere on earth.
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110 mi3 h 22 minBohuslän Coast Road
Sweden’s iconic west-coast run: 170 km of pink granite skerries, candy-coloured fishing villages, and free-range prawns from Gothenburg to the Norwegian border.
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109 mi4 h 13 minTizi n'Test
One of the most spectacular and intimidating mountain roads in North Africa, scaling the western High Atlas to a 2,093 m summit via sheer unbarriered drops, past the 12th-century Tin Mal Mosque.
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108 mi2 h 50 minOverseas Highway
42 bridges and a hundred miles of open water to Key West.
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25
106 mi3 h 31 minPutty Road
Legendary 168 km biker run from Wilberforce to Singleton through forest and the Hunter hills.
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26
104 mi3 h 50 minSouthern Cross-Island Highway
Taiwan’s most dramatic trans-mountain route: Highway 20 climbs from the Tainan plains through Yushan National Park to the 2,722 m Yakou pass, then down the Laonong gorge to Taitung.
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103 mi3 h 36 minKjölur Highland Route
Iceland’s most celebrated highland crossing, threading the Kjölur plateau between two massive ice caps through geothermal hot springs and ancient wilderness.
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101 mi3 h 31 minChalus Road
A 160 km trans-Alborz epic climbing from Tehran’s hinterland through river gorges and ancient Hyrcanian forest before dropping to the Caspian Sea.
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94 mi3 h 8 minLojing Highlands Highway
The Second East-West Highway pierces the Titiwangsa Range through the Lojing Highlands, a sustained drive above the cloud layer past pristine rainforest and the towering Lojing Viaduct.
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92 mi3 h 13 minForgotten World Highway
A remote heritage run between Stratford and Taumarunui over three saddles, through a one-lane tunnel and the self-declared Republic of Whangamomona.
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