The open road still softly calls, like a nearly forgotten song of childhood. I was curious if someone has made a list of long-distance hiking trails, and of course the answer is yes. Worldwide, there are 46 trails longer than 1,000 kilometers that are passing through mostly wild areas with natural trail surfaces. The world’s longest trail is the not-so-romantically named E4, which starts in Portugal and ends in Greece and Cyprus, passing several South and Central European countries on the way. It’s also the only trail that’s longer than 10,000 kilometers, although this is cheating a bit since some of it is on the islands of Crete and Cyprus and therefore not contiguous with the rest of the trail.
The other 45 trails over 1,000 kilometers are dominated by the European long-distance paths and the National Trails System in the United States. Missing from the list are trail systems like the Grande Randonnée (GR) trails in France, which cumulatively cover 60,000 kilometers. The longest trail outside of North America or Europe is the Great Himalaya Trail in Nepal, although it doesn’t appear to be completed yet.
Altogether, those 46 trails cover over 160,000 kilometers. At 30 kilometers a day, this would take 15 years of nonstop backpacking. So many trails, so little time!
Nehaveigur 