The Gear Junkie, also known as Stephen Regenold, has written a great article for Travel+Leisure Magazine about the Scariest Roads in the World.
The list, which naturally consists of 10 roads, is full of scary byways the world over. Some of these you’ve no doubt seen before, like the North Yungus Road in Bolivia, which is often called the “Road of Death” and routinely appears on lists such as this one. Others are more unique, such as the Guoliang Tunnel Road which was carved out of the side of a mountain by villagers in a remote region of China. The passage is just 15 feet high, and 12 feet wide, and Stephen says the name roughly translates to “Road that does not tolerate any mistakes.”
Other roads on the list are found in the Philippines, Pakistan, Russia, and more. The mostly are located in some of the most remote regions, where they were incredibly difficult to build and challenging to maintain. Riding on any of these is an adventure in and of itself, giving new meaning to the term “white knuckle ride.”
Have you been on any of these? What’s the scariest road you’ve been on? For me, I’d have to say the lone road out of the Ngorongoro Crater stands out for it’s winding path and precipitous drops. Still, I was less worried riding on it that I was on pretty much any road in Egypt, the land where lines on the road are more of a suggestion than a hard and fast rule.
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I was once on a tiny bus in the Tatry mountain range in southern Poland. It was overcrowded and heaving every which way on the side of the mountain. Pretty scary, but nowhere near as bad as these.
My husband and I had a big roadtrip around Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming a few years back. We ended up on some exciting passes in the San Juan mountains, and then accidently took Potash road in Moab all the way in to the White Rim trail in Canyonlands.
That last road was fun, bumpy, one lane, on loose sandstone carved out of the rim of the canyon. We had a great time on it. More recently, I encouraged my Mom and Dad to rent a jeep and drive it. My mom had about three panic attacks on the way up and had to do the last 30 minutes with her eyes closed!
Sounds like fun Kate! 🙂 It goes to show you, you don’t have to be off in some far flung location to find a very scary road!