what is the longest journey you have ever made

51 Meaningful Quotes About How Life is a Journey

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They say that life is about the journey and not the destination. But what does that really mean?

You’ve probably heard this line a million times before, but maybe you couldn’t quite understand what it was trying to illustrate. 

The most successful people will tell you that the process of accomplishing something is far more valuable than the end result. You learn much more from all of your experiences and encounters than you do from arriving at the destination.

Ultimately, the process is the greatest reward. The sweetest moments come when you realize that you have attained the final goal because of everything you have experienced.

You look back on the mistakes, the challenges, and everything you had to endure—but you also celebrate the fact that you faced your problems head-on. Your journey through life is what makes you human.

In this article, we share with you a list of quotes about how life is a journey . We hope that, through these words, you’ll be able to enjoy everything that life has to offer. Even more so, we hope that they will inspire you to live a more meaningful and happier life .

But before we check out our list, let’s discuss how reading these quotes can get you motivated.

Table of Contents

Why Read Quotes About How Life Is a Journey?

Reading these quotes can inspire you to live a better and more fulfilling life.

They are, after all, from people who have found their journeys through life enjoyable and gratifying. There’s no better way to motivate yourself than to get inspiration from people who have already lived wonderful lives.

In the same vein, these quotes can help you appreciate the gift of life. They help you realize that you only live once, so you must relish the moments you have been given.

Finally, reading these quotes can encourage you to share your life with others. You will realize that, in order to be able to live your life to the fullest, you need someone to share both your joys and sorrows with. You require companions to fully live in the moment .

Now that you know why it’s important to read journey quotes, let us check out our list!

Meaningful Life is a Journey Quotes

• “If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl. But by all means, keep moving.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
• “Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• “The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.” – Tony Robbins
• “The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance, and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.” – Oprah Winfrey
• “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
• “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” – Heraclitus
• “Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it by yourself. It is not far. It is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere – on water and land.” – Walt Whitman
• “The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what's in between, and they took great pleasure in doing just that.” – Norton Juster
• “The beautiful journey of today can only begin when we learn to let go of yesterday.” – Steve Maraboli

• “Some beautiful paths can't be discovered without getting lost.” – Erol Ozan
• “For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end.” – Michelle Obama
• “I am no longer afraid of becoming lost because the journey back always reveals something new, and that is ultimately good for the artist.” – Billy Joel
• “Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” – Pat Conroy
• “Never stop just because you feel defeated. The journey to the other side is attainable only after great suffering.” – Santosh Kalwar
• “There is a strange comfort in knowing that no matter what happens today, the Sun will rise again tomorrow.” – Aaron Lauritsen
• “Sometimes it’s the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination.” – Drake
• “ Transformation is a process , and as life happens there are tons of ups and downs. It’s a journey of discovery – there are moments on mountaintops and moments in deep valleys of despair.” – Rick Warren
• “The journey is never-ending. There’s always gonna be growth, improvement, and adversity; you just gotta take it all in and do what’s right, continue to grow, continue to live in the moment.” – Antonio Brown
• “Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.” – Greg Anderson
• “On your journey, don’t forget to smell the flowers. Take time out to notice that you are alive. You can only live one day.” – Ray Fearon

• “If my ship sails from sight, it doesn’t mean my journey ends. It simply means the river bends.” – Enoch Powell
• “It’s not an easy journey, to get to a place where you forgive people. But it is such a powerful place because it frees you.” – Tyler Perry
• “Aim for the sky, but move slowly, enjoying every step along the way. It is all those little steps that make the journey complete.” – Chanda Kochhar
• “Sometimes we make the process more complicated than we need to. We will never make a journey of a thousand miles by fretting about how long it will take or how hard it will be. We make the journey by taking each day step by step and then repeating it again and again until we reach our destination.” – Joseph B. Wirthlin
• “Your journey never ends. Life has a way of changing things in incredible ways.” – Alexander Volkov
• “Each one of us has our own evolution of life, and each one of us goes through different tests which are unique and challenging. But certain things are common. And we do learn things from each other's experiences. On a spiritual journey, we all have the same destination.” – A. R. Rahman
• “Going by my past journey, I am not certain where life will take me, what turns and twists will happen; nobody knows where they will end up. As life changes direction, I'll flow with it.” – Katrina Kaif
• “Enjoy the journey and try to get better every day. And don't lose the passion and the love for what you do.” – Nadia Comaneci

• “But it's a journey and the sad thing is you only learn from experience, so as much as someone can tell you things, you have to go out there and make your own mistakes in order to learn.” – Emma Watson
• “The seeker embarks on a journey to find what he wants and discovers, along the way, what he needs.” – Wally Lamb
• “Life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.” – Oliver Goldsmith
• “The Sun will rise and set regardless. What we choose to do with the light while it's here is up to us. Journey wisely.” – Alexandra Elle
• “We may run, walk, stumble. drive, or fly, but let us never lose sight of the reason for the journey, or miss a chance to see a rainbow on the way.” – Gloria Gaither
• “Whole life is a search for beauty. But, when the beauty is found inside, the search ends and a beautiful journey begins.” – Harshit Walia
• “Not everyone will understand your journey. That's okay. You're here to live your life, not to make everyone understand .” – Banksy
• “I believe that life is a journey, often difficult and sometimes incredibly cruel, but we are well equipped for it if only we tap into our talents and gifts and allow them to blossom.” – Les Brown
• “It was being a runner that mattered, not how fast or how far I could run. The joy was in the act of running and in the journey, not in the destination.” – John Bingham
• “As you journey down the path, don't forget to be present moment-by-moment and absorb the beauty and richness of simply being alive.” – Cary David Richards
• “If all difficulties were known at the outset of a long journey, most of us would never start out at all.” – Dan Rather

• “Life is a journey of either Fate or Destiny. Fate is the result of giving in to one's wounds and heartaches. Your Destiny unfolds when you rise above the challenges of your life and use them as Divine opportunities to move forward to unlock your higher potential.” – Caroline Myss
• “I know it can be tough to imagine how to get from where you are today to where you want to be tomorrow. But I’m here to tell you that change is possible if you enter into this journey with your eyes wide open, and with real intention.” – David Hauser
• “Part of the challenge that comes with striving for success is how the entire journey comes with its own fair share of failures and disappointments.” – Rupert Johnson
• “The only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step that you are taking at this moment. That's all there ever is.” – Alan Watts
• “Life is a journey and it's about growing and changing and coming to terms with who and what you are and loving who and what you are.” – Kelly McGillis
• “Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived.” – Captain Jean-Luc Picard
• “I just constantly tell myself that I should be the only one to define my worth and what I'm capable of and how I perceive myself. And that I should never source that worth from other people, especially strangers on social media. They don't know who I am, the length of my journey, who I am as a person.” – Catriona Gray
• “ You have learned a lot, but there are still lots of learning for you as you journey through life. Never stop learning.” – Kate Summers

• “One of the most important things that I have learned in my 57 years is that life is all about choices. On every journey you take, you face choices. At every fork in the road, you make a choice. And it is those decisions that shape our lives.” – Mike DeWine
• “I'm different than most people. When I cross the finish line of a big race, I see that people are ecstatic, but I'm thinking about what I'm going to do tomorrow. It's as if my journey is everlasting, and there is no finish line.” – David Goggins
• “The journey matters as much as the destination. By engaging at the moment on set, I've stopped rushing and now find pleasure in the collaborative process – the characters, the costumes – rather than worrying about the finished product.” – Michelle Dockery
• “It's a life's journey of finding ourselves, finding our power, and living for yourself, not for everyone else.” – Mariska Hargitay

Final Thoughts on Life & Journey

Life is a journey, and we all take different paths.

There are those who take the road less traveled and enjoy unique accomplishments, while others go with the crowd but still end up loving the lives they’ve chosen as well. Regardless of our choices, we will all have the potential to become successful in the ways we personally define success.

We hope that these quotes inspired you to enjoy your life’s journey and make it more meaningful. Enjoy the moment and live happy!

And if you want more inspirational quotes, be sure to check out these blog posts:

• 63 Inspiring Walt Whitman Quotes About Life
• 51 Do What Makes You Happy Quotes for 2023
• 107 Quotes About Overcoming Adversity and Challenges in Your Life

Finally, if you want to use these quotes to make a lasting change to your life, then check out and recite these 57 affirmations for success .

Longest journey by tractor

The longest journey by tractor is 25,378.4 kilometres (15,769.38 miles) and was achieved by Hubert Berger (Germany) who travelled around Europe between 8 May and 23 October 2016.

Hubert travelled to 36 countries, starting and ending in his home country of Germany. He drove a 1970 Eicher Tiger II tractor.

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The Longest Journey: The Exploration

Discover the highs and lows of the expedition that marked the first circumnavigation of the world., acción cultural española, ac/e.

Antonio Fernández Torres, Guillermo Morán Dauchez (General Archive of the Indies) and Braulio Vázquez Campos (General Archive of the Indies).

The Exploration by Lola Bermúdez (Tannhauser Estudio) Acción Cultural Española, AC/E

"… there are … utopias that occupy a precise and real place, a place that can be located on a map." Michel Foucault, French philosopher.

Europa and Asia by Lola Bermúdez (Tannhauser Estudio) Acción Cultural Española, AC/E

About 500 years ago in Seville, Europe's long-awaited dream of reaching the unexplored, mythical lands of the Orient and the Spice Islands became a reality. Ferdinand Magellan set off on his voyage in 1519, and three years later it became the longest voyage of the era: the first circumnavigation of the world was completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano, captain of the Victoria , and his crew in 1522.

Storm in Puerto Deseado (1769) by Alejo Berlinguero Original Source: Archivo General de Indias

Sailing South: The Time for Navigation 

Sanlúcar de Barrameda—Río de la Plata | September 20, 1519—February 10, 1520 (143 days)

The Unknown by Braulio Vázquez Acción Cultural Española, AC/E

With the ships at the ready and the crew on board, the Captain-General ordered the sails to be dropped, and the five ships sailed into the ocean. Magellan wanted to cross the Atlantic and reach the edge of the explored territories as soon as possible. However, he was a distrustful man and hid the details of the passage from his captains. Every change in direction made the other captains suspicious. The Atlantic, with its mix of calm and stormy conditions, brought out the Armada's strengths and weaknesses: they had good ships and good men, but a seed of discord had started to grow among those in command. > Take a virtual tour of the exhibition in the General Archive of the Indies.

Order by Charles I to Ferdinand Magellan and Rui Faleiro / Page 01 Archivos Estatales

In the Charters of Valladolid (Capitulaciones de Valladolid), the King had given detailed, written instructions to Magellan and Faleiro, though Faleiro never made it to sea. The structure of the activities of the expedition was laid out in 74 highly detailed articles. The articles addressed topics such as how they were to navigate and what the rules of living aboard the ships should be. The articles also stressed the importance of maintaining peace and harmony with the people native to where they landed in order to keep trade relations flowing.

Order by Charles I to Ferdinand Magellan and Rui Faleiro Order by Charles I to Ferdinand Magellan and Rui Faleiro / Page 11 Archivos Estatales

Every member of the expedition party also had the right to document the events of the voyage in order to communicate them to the Crown. This undoubtedly fostered the myriad first-hand accounts of the voyage, however, in reality, it was the Monarchy's means of exercising its control over its own representatives and commanders. If anyone could communicate directly with the King, everyone would make sure they carefully abided by his orders.

The Victoria by Antonio Fernández Torres (Tannhauser Estudio) Acción Cultural Española, AC/E

With no speed, no command, dead sails, and the ships' bows at the mercy of the currents, they did not sail in the ocean, but rather floated there. Heat and inactivity settled over the ships, the days went by, the voyage became longer, and water and food was rationed. The inactive crew thought and whispered about the impotence of the navigators and captains. This long period of unsettled calm was a breeding ground for indiscipline and rebellion.

Map of the Government of the Río de la Plata (1683) Original Source: Archivo General de Indias

Finally, the fleet reached Río de la Plata and sailed along the coast of America. For every mile they traveled south, the wind became harder, colder, and more hostile—this was the most dangerous and inhospitable coastline. Exhaustion and doubt invaded the minds of the crew. How far did they have to sail until they found a way through?

Figurative drawing of the difficulties faced by two boats at the command of frigate lieutenant Manuel de Pando (1769) by Alexo Berlinguero Original Source: Archivo General de Indias

In the bay of los Trabajos (possibly current-day Puerto Deseado, Argentina), the crew had to take shelter due to a terrible storm as the Trinidad was in danger."They at last petitioned their admiral, Magellan … to think about going home, to turn back to where the winter was not so harsh … and to be satisfied and content himself with having gone farther than either the boldness or rashness of mortals had ever dared to go as yet." Maximilianus Transylvanus.

Terra Brasilis and the South Atlantic (ca. 1519) by Lopo Homem, Pedro Reinel, Jorge Reinel Original Source: Biblioteca Nacional de Francia

Sailing Into the Unknown: The Extreme South

Río de la Plata—Strait of Magellan | February 2, 1520–November 28, 1520 (300 days)

From the Río de la Plata to the Magellan Strait by Lola Bermúdez (Tannhauser Estudio) Acción Cultural Española, AC/E

Magellan decided to sail as far south as needed, but the southern fall hit them with force and the crew were exhausted and divided. They quickly decided to take shelter in a bay which they named San Julián, and the food supplies were rationed. While there they met the Patagones people, a bloody mutiny took place, and they endured a long and harsh winter that lasted five months. The men were suffering from the cold and hunger, but above all, they feared their captain's determination and silence. This fear spread throughout the crew, and a mutiny eventually broke out.

What do explorers fear?

The scientists and explorers Pedro Duque, Tomás Mazón, Tomás Echegoyen, Kitín Múñoz, Íñigo Múñoz, Matthias Mauer, and Ignacio Orcada, among others, speak of their fears as they embarked on a voyage into the unknown.

Coat of arms of Gonzalo Gómez Espinosa (1528) Original Source: Archivo General de Indias

Coats of arms of Gonzalo Gómez de Espinosa

Many of the coats of arms bestowed upon explorers depicted events from their adventures and featured on their furniture. Such items have become important symbolic artefacts of the events. One example of this is the coat of arms bestowed upon Gonzalo Gómez de Espinosa, the chief constable who squashed the mutiny against Magellan in San Julián. This coat of arms depicts his participation in the circumnavigation of the world as well as particular events that occurred during the expedition.

Map of the Kingdom of Chile (ca. 1646) Original Source: Archivo General de Indias

The Strait: The Point of No Return

Strait of Magellan | October 21, 1520–November 28, 1520 (37 days)

The Strait by Braulio Vázquez Acción Cultural Española, AC/E

With the arrival of a southern spring, the four ships set course to the south. After only three days sailing, they found a bay, and behind it lay a maze of canals and expanses that disappeared into the mountains. Could this be the pass into the South Sea they had hoped for?

Maritime Map of the Magellan Strait (1769) by Juan de la Cruz Cano y Olmedilla Original Source: Archivo General de Indias

A map created by the cartographer Juan de la Cruz Cano y Olmedilla shows the labyrinth of the Strait of Magellan, made up of a maze of canals. The expedition party crossed dense, frozen waters in the daunting silence of the wilderness. Their solitude was only broken by bursts of flame in the night in the southerly lands Magellan named Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire). Battling a glacial ocean, successive explorations were undertaken in search of the open waters of the Pacific.

Map of the former Kingdom of Chile (1646) Original Source: Archivo General de Indias

This map of Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, and Chile (which is in an unusual orientation) depicts the so-called giants (large Patagones natives), who the crew were astounded by, and tailed people (known as rabudos). This gives some insight into the myths that spread throughout the continent of America.

Map of the extreme south of the American continent (1671-08-29) Original Source: Archivo General de Indias

For over a month, and with guns raised, Magellan's fleet explored and crossed the maze of tides and winds of the strait that would one day bear his name. They finally succeeded in finding a pass on November 28 and ventured into a new sea. They had achieved their first goal, but by then only three ships remained: the Trinidad , the Victoria , and the Concepción . The San Antonio had deserted them.

Information from Álvaro de la Mezquita on the takeover of the San Antonio Information from Álvaro de la Mezquita on the takeover of the San Antonio / Page 03 Archivos Estatales

The San Antonio arrived at the port of Las Muelas in Seville in May 1521 under strange circumstances: in addition to deserting the expedition, the crew had taken their captain, Antonio de Mezquita, prisoner following a mutiny against him for having refused to abandon Magellan, to whom he was related. It was clear to officials at the House of Trade that they needed to question all those involved in order to unravel the story of what lead to such an unprecedented turn of events.

Letter from Juan López de Recalde to Juan Rodríguez Fonseca Letter from Juan López de Recalde to Juan Rodríguez Fonseca / Page 01 by Juan López de Recalde Archivos Estatales

The head bookkeeper, Juan López de Recalde, undertook the arduous task of interrogating the sailors one by one, and the outcome was outlined in this letter dated May 12, 1521, which he sent to the Bishop of Burgos, Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca, who was head of the Council of the Indies. The sailors testified before López de Recalde, stating that they had decided to abandon the expedition because they believed—in error—that the passage Magellan was looking for was inviable, and they presumed the rest of the ships had been lost to their exploration into the strait. The Spanish authorities were not very optimistic about the expedition given these were the first reports they received on the fate of Magellan's voyage.

Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1588) by Abraham Ortelio Original Source: Archivo General de Indias

The Pacific: The Endless Ocean

Strait of Magellan—Mariana Islands | November 28, 1520–March 6, 1521 (a 99-day crossing)

The Pacific Ocean by Braulio Vázquez Acción Cultural Española, AC/E

Leaving the pass in their wake, the three ships entered what they knew as the South Sea. They imagined they were sailing toward India, near the Moluccas, unaware that they were crossing the largest ocean on earth. Europeans had never crossed this ocean before, and their maps were of no use to them there.

It took them 100 days to cross the Pacific Ocean. The crew suffered from hunger, disease, and confusion as they sailed. For 100 days and 100 nights, the ocean and the earth showed humans just how vast it really was. Magellan was aware of his mistake: no one would ever wish to undertake the same voyage again.

Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1588) by Abraham Ortelio Archivos Estatales

The map of the known world that was used up until the early 16th century came directly from the classical tradition of the Greek geographer and mathematician Ptolemy (2nd century AD). Spurred on by the first expeditions beyond Europe, humanists found a more accurate way to describe and map out the relief of the earth. Using astronomical calculations and observation, they discovered how to use longitude to determine the position of ships at sea in relation to a specific point.

In the 16th century, the Flemish scholar and merchant Abraham Ortelius (Amberes, 1527–98), cosmographer to King Philip II of Spain, published an atlas that brought together all the maps of the known world as well as new discoveries. In doing so, he portrayed America, the discovery of the Pacific by Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513, and the strait discovered by Magellan. In total, Ortelio used 87 maps which had been created by other voyagers and mapmakers.

Night Acción Cultural Española, AC/E

The night. Darkness and silence.

Through the night, the ships sailed in darkness. Watchmen manned the ships and followed the captain's lantern. To prevent any fires, only a small lantern was used to light the compass that was housed in the binnacle. A vigilant pageboy stood next to the lantern, looking after it and the only clock aboard the ship: an hourglass. The watchmen followed the sounds of the sheets, sails, and the bow of the flagship as it chopped through the waves. They could make do without light—they just needed silence, which was broken every half-hour by a child's voice shouting out the time as he turned the hourglass.

The Longest Voyage. Sea Acción Cultural Española, AC/E

Continue to the next stage of the adventure: The Longest Voyage: The Destination .

Adaptation of the exhibition " The Longest Journey: The First Around the World ". Organizers:   Spanish Cultural Action , Ministry of Culture. General Archive of the Indies Curated by:  Antonio Fernández Torres, Guillermo Morán Dauchez, Braulio Vázquez Campos Program:  Raquel Mesa Images:  Archivo General de Indias, Tannhauser Estudio > See the digital catalog > Download the digital catalog > See brochure This exhibition is part of the First Voyage Around the World project.

The Longest Voyage: The Dream

Cervantes, times of childhood and youth, archivos estatales, the longest journey: setting sail, cervantes: a life in the golden age, cervantes, the brilliant author, the longest voyage: the destination, la casa lonja de mercaderes in seville, the longest voyage: the return, paper restoration processes, the longest voyage: transformation, the road to a new era.

The Longest Journey - A Retrospective

A game that almost vanished.

My earlier post about story reminds me of a piece I wrote for PC Gamer a few years back, looking at The Longest Journey, and its lasting effect on me. There was never room for my full thoughts then, and the full length 'director's cut' version has sat on my hard drive since. Clearly Dreamfall has been released since, telling us more about April Ryan, and another retrospective is due for that. Meanwhile, here's the full-length version of the original piece.

“Mystery is important. To know everything, to know the whole truth, is dull. There is no magic in that. Magic is not knowing, magic is wondering about what and how and where.”

The Longest Journey almost vanished away unnoticed, another obscurity ranted about by a few, but never reaching any acclaim. In the mire of pre-millennial adventure gaming, it could so easily have been drowned by the density of its peers, ignored by pessimism, never given the chance it so strongly deserved. How it was joyously liberated from this fate is mysterious. And in mystery, there is magic. In The Longest Journey, there is magic.

As a point and click adventure, The Longest Journey already defied conventions, ignoring the genre’s desperately floundering attempts at “catching up”. Developer and writer Ragnar Tørnquist and his team at Funcom understood that “catching up” was meaningless – they had a story to tell, and a world in which it needed to be told, and so this was the game they made. The natural instinct to say how it recaptured the adventure’s previous glory is strong, but this just simply isn’t true. Adventure gaming had never been as glorious as The Longest Journey – it hadn’t ever even come close.

Eighteen year old art student April Ryan provides the most perfect eyes through which to witness this tale. Sceptical, sarcastic and sassy, she tight-rope walks the same line as Buffy, mouthing off but never quite tumbling into the irritating. And yet still somehow gets away with normally grating late 90s Ameriteenisms such as, “That’s SO not appropriate.” You forgive her, because you realise, as do the games’ twin worlds of Stark and Arcadia, that she’s important .

A friend was recently explaining to me how Silent Hill 4 manages to spook so effectively by blurring the two worlds of the normal, and the horrific. When an element of one leaks into the other, stability in the known is shaken, and fear drip, drip, drips in. In April Ryan’s life, it is the fantastic that begins to disturb the normality of her existence, the world of dreams invading her world of rational and science. And where a good horror story shows you fear in the every day, The Longest Journey shows you magic. Set 200 years in the future, April’s world is enough like our own to allow us to identify, but distant enough to allow it status as a metaphor.

The meta-narrative tells of how, long ago, the united Earth was divided into two: Science and Magic, Stark and Arcadia. The Bladerunner-inspired future version of our known world allows the effects of this severance to have been demonstrated even more, well, starkly than they are now. Wars have increased the degree of global apartheid, Capitalism’s punishments are more prevalent, authority rules over democracy, and people simply get on with being people as it happens around them. It is unavoidably our future.

In contrast, Arcadia refers back to so many fantasy lands, simplicity bolstered by magic, thus creating seismic instability and inevitable fracture. But Arcadia at least possesses hope. Stark’s worldview is blind, eyes gouged out by its people’s own hands. It allows the coming destruction of Chaos without even the consciousness to question. And so it is through April’s dreams, through her powerful imagination, that she is drawn to ‘shift’ out of that world, and to learn her part in the shaping of the future.

I was unaware of how much I’ve been influenced by The Longest Journey, until returning to its tale for this piece. I’ve been writing a children’s story, on and off, for a couple of years, never getting very far with it, but always driven to persist by its unstoppable urge to leave my head. I’m now wondering how much I have to remove because I’ve simply plagiarised it from my subconscious. The ideology of this game is lodged deeply inside me, partly because I so strongly identified with the message I took from it, and partly because that message is so powerfully told. It is always a point and click adventure. There are always daft clicking the rubber duck on the clamp and tying it to the string puzzles. But it works with these elements, not despite them. Nearly every voice is perfectly cast, and the recording supervised by the game’s creator and writer, Ragnar Tørnquist. Yes, there is swearing, but there is swearing where real people swear. And wow, are the conversations long. But they are telling you a story like no other.

April is not a simple character, a template onto which we may impose ourselves to experience a world. She has issues with her father, trouble letting people get too close, and a propensity to run away rather than face difficulty. She is a complex and broken human being, thrown into a situation too big to understand, and arguably destroyed by it. She’s a person.

The opening quote, said to April by her mentor when she is persisting with him for answers, speaks for the whole game. The Longest Journey is epic and magnificent, but completion makes you aware that this is only a tiny fraction of a created world. Indeed, these are only weeks in the whole of April Ryan’s lifetime. So much remains unknown. But to know the whole truth is dull. Magic is in not knowing, magic is wondering about what and how and when.

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The Longest Journey Review

The Longest Journey is one of the best adventure games in years.

By Ron Dulin on June 26, 2000 at 5:41PM PDT

The Longest Journey is one of the best adventure games in years. Like a hybrid of classic Sierra and LucasArts games, it tells a great fairy tale filled with characters that you'll remember long after the game is over.

The Longest Journey is about a young woman named April Ryan, a visual-arts student who lives at a boarding house in a small, bohemian area in the city of Newport called Venice. While these locations suggest Southern California, the geographical setting of The Longest Journey is never stated; it's just a large city of the future. And while The Longest Journey's setting may be the stuff of science-fiction clichés, the game never resorts to the typical dystopian predictions. In fact, Newport seems very much like a modern metropolis, only with flying cars.

April has some problems. She's a runaway who has left home because of her father, though the exact reasons she left are never stated. She has a huge art project due, and she can't seem to get started. The guy who lives across the hall is a crude, arrogant jackass who won't leave her alone. And most importantly, she's being plagued by strange dreams that seem a little too real.

The game begins in one of these dreams. April is standing high on a cliff, overlooking a strange land. On this cliff, she meets a dragon and a talking tree, and she is visited by a strange, malevolent mass that sends her careening over the edge - and back into her bed.

When she awakes, you begin to learn about her life. If there's one problem with The Longest Journey, it's that the opening is a bit slow. It's loaded with expository dialogue about April, her friends, and the city. While this isn't a problem in and of itself, it seems strange that there is so much exposition right off the bat, when you've yet to meet any of the characters or visit the places mentioned. These conversations would have been much more interesting had they come a bit later in the game, once you've actually familiarized yourself with the places and characters you learn about.

During the first chapters of the game, you explore April's life. You meet her friends, you go to her school and to her job at a local coffee house. It seems like boring stuff, but it accomplishes an important task - as you take part in her routine, you begin to really care about her and her comrades. Her friends all have the hallmark concerns of people making the transition to adulthood - school problems, turbulent love lives, and bad jobs.

The game gets more interesting once the truth behind April's dreams becomes more apparent. You learn that there are two different worlds: Stark is devoted to science and technology, while the other, Arcadia, is devoted to magic. April has the rare ability to "shift," to move between these two worlds. These worlds, which were once one but came to be two, are fascinating, and you'll be eager to learn more about both their history and their future. April's dreams and some strange occurrences in both worlds are taking place because the division between the worlds is being eroded. And April is the one who must restore the balance.

Once the truth is revealed, the game begins to take place in both worlds. April cannot control her shifting, so moving from one world to the next takes place at times both opportune and otherwise. In both places, April meets a fascinating range of characters. In Arcadia there's Abnaxus, a representative of the Venar, who live in all times at once. He's a copy editor's nightmare, as he shifts tenses midsentence and often midword. Then there's Burns Flipper, the foul-mouthed hacker who rides around in a little hovercar. Even the most minor character is interesting in The Longest Journey, and you'll find yourself concerned with all of their fates.

It's a testament to designer Ragnar Tornquist's storytelling ability that you become so attached to everyone you meet. His game follows the blueprint laid by the classics of the fantasy epic, even as April's eccentric mentor begins teaching the reluctant savior. But it's also an original story that's filled with interesting settings and people. The Longest Journey is sometimes sad, sometimes funny, and sometimes scary. At times, it's all of these things at once.

The worlds are brought to life with rich, detailed graphics. The character models may not be extremely detailed, but they are good-looking and diverse. The background scenery is colorful and varied, and no two locations look the same. The sound is even better, because of the nonintrusive ambient music and excellent character voices. It's commendable that Funcom took the time to create a great English translation of the game, especially considering that it may not ever be published in the States (the translation was done for the U.K. version, which was published in April).

The puzzles in The Longest Journey are fairly standard, though they get better as the game goes on. In the beginning, you'll have to use some of your inventory items in illogical ways. But later in the game, the puzzles become more intuitive and fit better into the story.

The Longest Journey's complex and interesting story is what's most important. It deepens as you get further into it, and once it's over you'll still be thinking about all the subplots and how they tied together. And the conclusion is bittersweet - it's uplifting and rewarding, but there's a strange sense of sadness to it as well. The only criticism that can be leveled at the ending is that the epilogue does little to wrap everything up, so it'll leave you wondering what happened to many of the characters after April's task was completed.

But the end does allude to a sequel, and anyone who plays the game will be more than happy at the prospect of one. It's not that The Longest Journey leaves you unsatisfied - it's that it leaves you wanting even more.

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The Longest Movie of All Time Will Take You 35 Days to Watch

How many bathroom breaks are you going to need?

The Big Picture

• Logistics is the longest film ever made, with a runtime of 857 hours.
• The documentary follows the production of a pedometer, exploring the complexity of the global economy.
• The film emphasizes the slow and methodical process of bringing everyday objects to the public and highlights how dependent we are on this process.

There is a great appeal to long and epic movies: one that flies in the face of the sensibilities of the modern theatergoing audience and relates a story of such grand proportions that the runtime is completely merited by the scope that the story covers. Cinematic history is full of examples of long and excellent films that push the runtime, but also tell such a compelling story that the audience doesn’t tend to mind. John Wick: Chapter 4 had a runtime of nearly three hours, for example, and is generally regarded as the best film in the series.

The theatrical cut of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was 3 hours 21 minutes and won Best Picture, and the history of Best Picture winners contains a fair number of these gargantuan films , from The Deer Hunter (183 minutes) to Gone with the Wind (238 minutes). Abel Gance ’s 1927 film Napoleon is 5 hours 30 minutes long and widely considered a cinematic masterpiece. Despite the plaudits and runtimes of these films, though, there is one film that holds the undisputed crown as the longest film ever made . The 2012 Swedish documentary Logistics runs for 857 hours , which, for those of you keeping track at home, adds up to a runtime of 35 days (and 17 hours).

The production cycle of a pedometer in reverse chronological order.

What Is ‘Logistics’ About?

The phenomenally long runtime of Logistics suggests, of course, a natural follow-up question: what topic merits a treatment the size of the longest movie ever mad e? And how do you schedule your bathroom breaks around watching it? How do you even keep your eyes open to watch it, other than resorting to using the Ludovico device from A Clockwork Orange ?

The idea for the film apparently came about in 2008 , when the Swedish filmmakers Erika Magnusson and Daniel Andersson read an article in a German newspaper on the manufacture of an electric toothbrush, the parts of which came from ten different countries. This sparked their interest and fascination with the sheer complexity of the global economy and interactions that bring all the modern gizmos into the hands of the public consumer.

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This interest led to the central idea for what would become the movie Logistics , as Magnusson and Andersson decided to make a documentary following the production of one of these gadgets from beginning to end, from the moment of construction to the point at which someone bought it. It was meant to be an exploration of just how little the public actually knows about the world around them and how the things that are considered to be some of the most basic and accepted parts of everyday life in the modern world have a complex history and origin that few people ever consider, or what Andersson calls a “false sense of familiarity.”

The gadget of choice for the filmmakers was chosen specifically to be something that was a piece of “the sort of anonymous clutter that everyday life is full of.” Consequently, it really could have been anything, but in this case, that bit of anonymous clutter turned out to be a pedometer . There the journey began, as the filming took the crew from Stockholm in Sweden to the port of Gothenburg, then on the world’s largest container ship from the port, across the Mediterranean Sea, through the Suez Canal (without getting stuck), then across the Indian Ocean to the port of Shenzhen and a factory in Bao´an, China.

Why Is ‘Logistics’ 857 Hours Long?

So far, the concept seems to be a worthy one for an intriguing documentary . However, answering the question of where modern gadgets come from doesn't seem to necessitate the runtime of the longest movie ever made (spoilers: it’s China). However, according to the Logistics Art Project, the point of the documentary was not merely to show audiences the long and complicated process by which the modern consumer accumulates clutter, but rather to remind them of an all too easily forgotten fact in a fast-paced and increasingly digital world : that this digital existence is entirely dependent upon slow, methodical, complex physical transport and distribution, and that there are no shortcuts on that journey.

As a result, the documentary takes no shortcuts in the process either . It films the entire journey from Stockholm to Bao´an in real-time. consequently, the runtime is an essential point of the film : it is an accurate representation of the amount of time that it takes for even the simplest and most pedestrian of objects to reach the hands of the public.

How ‘Logistics’ Became the Longest Movie of All Time

When you open up the field of competition to the realm of documentaries , the marathon for the title of “Longest Movie of All Time” becomes a bit more contested . Claude Lanzmann ’s award-winning Holocaust documentary Shoah clocks in at 9 hours 26 minutes . The incorrectly titled The Longest Most Meaningless Movie in the World runs for 48 hours. The more aptly titled The Cure for Insomnia stretches the boundaries to 87 hours, but things are actually just getting warmed up. The documentary Beijing 2003 reaches the 150-hour mark. The movie Modern Times Forever is, comparatively speaking, a paltry 240 hours (or 10 days) long. But even so, none hold a candle to the runtime of Logistics .

All in all, Logistics is a deliberately slow and methodical approach to the overlooked aspects of modern life. It immerses the audience in the long and drawn-out process of bringing even what people consider to be the most mundane of objects to the public while diving deep into the process that, for most people, is an invisible part of society. In a way, Logistics shows just how dependent people ultimately are on all of that overlooked process .

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• Use an opener.
• Answer the question by paraphrasing.
• Use different tenses/structures.
• Include fluency markers and linking words. 
• Use some less common vocabulary (as seen below) 

02 Useful Vocabulary 

Read the below definitions. Then complete the quiz that follows.

• To push on (v)  - to continue on a journey. 
• To come up with (v)  - to think of an idea, plan or solution. 
• Safe and sound (adj) - usually used when we talk about the end of a trip. It means not hurt or damaged. 
• To commute (v)  - to make the same journey regularly between work and home. 
• To set off (v)   -  to begin a journey. 
• Arduous (adj)  - involving or requiring strenuous effort; difficult and tiring.

Now, take the quiz. More than one answer may be possible. Choose the most appropriate answer.

03 Listen and fill in the blanks

Watch and listen to the video of our sample answers below. Use a notebook to take note of the answers. Then check your answers.

If you found this useful , you should check out more of our free lessons  here! 

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Terry Anderson, AP reporter who was held captive for years, dies at 76

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Terry Anderson, the globe-trotting Associated Press correspondent who became one of America’s longest-held hostages after he was snatched from a street in war-torn Lebanon in 1985 and held for nearly seven years , has died at 76.

Anderson, who chronicled his abduction and torturous imprisonment by Islamic militants in his best-selling 1993 memoir, “Den of Lions,” died Sunday at his home in Greenwood Lake, N.Y., according to daughter Sulome Anderson.

Anderson died of complications from recent heart surgery, his daughter said.

“Terry was deeply committed to on-the-ground eyewitness reporting and demonstrated great bravery and resolve, both in his journalism and during his years held hostage. We are so appreciative of the sacrifices he and his family made as the result of his work,” said Julie Pace, senior vice president and executive editor of the AP.

“He never liked to be called a hero, but that’s what everyone persisted in calling him,” said Sulome. “I saw him a week ago, and my partner asked him if he had anything on his bucket list, anything that he wanted to do. He said, ‘I’ve lived so much and I’ve done so much. I’m content.’ ”

After returning to the United States in 1991, Anderson led a peripatetic life, giving public speeches, teaching journalism at prominent universities and, at various times, operating a blues bar, a Cajun eatery, a horse ranch and a gourmet restaurant.

He struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder, won millions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets after a federal court concluded that the country played a role in his capture, then lost most of it to bad investments. He filed for bankruptcy in 2009.

Upon retiring from the University of Florida in 2015, Anderson settled on a small horse farm in a rural section of northern Virginia he had discovered while camping with friends.

World & Nation

Hostage Ordeal Ends as Anderson Is Freed : Mideast: ‘Faith, stubbornness’ kept him going through 6 1/2 years as captive, American says. He left his captors with a single word--’Goodby.’

Dec. 5, 1991

“I live in the country, and it’s reasonably good weather and quiet out here and a nice place, so I’m doing all right,” he said with a chuckle during a 2018 interview with the Associated Press.

In 1985 he became one of several Westerners abducted by members of the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah during a war that had plunged Lebanon into chaos.

After his release, he returned to a hero’s welcome at AP’s New York headquarters.

Louis D. Boccardi, the president and chief executive officer of the AP at the time, recalled Sunday that Anderson’s plight was never far from his AP colleagues’ minds.

“The word ‘hero’ gets tossed around a lot but applying it to Terry Anderson just enhances it,” Boccardi said. “His 6½-year ordeal as a hostage of terrorists was as unimaginable as it was real — chains, being transported from hiding place to hiding place strapped to the chassis of a truck, given often inedible food, cut off from the world he reported on with such skill and caring.”

As the AP’s chief Middle East correspondent, Anderson had been reporting for several years on the rising violence gripping Lebanon as the country fought a war with Israel, while Iran funded militant groups trying to topple its government.

Kidnapers Videotape Anderson, Who Urges Talks to Free All Hostages

American journalist Terry Anderson, the longest-held Western hostage in Beirut, in a videotape released Sunday called on all sides to press negotiations for an overall hostage release.

Oct. 7, 1991

On March 16, 1985, a day off, he had taken a break to play tennis with former AP photographer Don Mell. Anderson was dropping Mell off at home when gun-toting kidnappers dragged him from his car.

He was probably targeted, he said, because he was one of the few Westerners still in Lebanon and because his role as a journalist aroused suspicion among members of Hezbollah.

“Because in their terms, people who go around asking questions in awkward and dangerous places have to be spies,“ he told the Virginia newspaper the Review of Orange County in 2018.

Reporter Starts 7th Year as Hostage : Lebanon: Terry Anderson of AP is the longest held--and best known--of the Westerners abducted by Islamic fundamentalists.

In a city of 1.4 million people and a reputation for chaos, is it possible that a letter with only a name and “Beirut” for an address can be delivered?

March 16, 1991

What followed was nearly seven years of brutality during which he was beaten, chained to a wall, threatened with death, often had guns held to his head and was kept in solitary confinement for long periods of time.

Anderson was the longest held of several Western hostages Hezbollah abducted over the years, including Terry Waite , the former envoy to the archbishop of Canterbury, who had arrived to try to negotiate his release.

Envoy Waite Detained by Hezbollah Forces, Diplomatic Sources Say

Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite is being detained by fundamentalist Hezbollah forces in Lebanon in a political tug-of-war between the militant Shia Muslim group, which has close ties to Iran, and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, diplomatic sources said Friday.

Jan. 31, 1987

By his and other hostages’ accounts, Anderson was the most hostile prisoner, demanding better food and treatment, arguing religion and politics with his captors and teaching other hostages sign language and where to hide messages so they could communicate privately.

He managed to retain a quick wit and biting sense of humor during his long ordeal. On his last day in Beirut, he called the lead kidnapper into his room to say he’d just heard an erroneous radio report that he’d been freed and was in Syria.

“I said, ‘Mahmound, listen to this, I’m not here. I’m gone, babes. I’m on my way to Damascus.’ And we both laughed,” he told Giovanna Dell’Orto, author of “AP Foreign Correspondents in Action: World War II to the Present.”

He learned later that his release was delayed when a third party, to whom his kidnappers planned to turn him over, left for a tryst and had to be replaced.

Mell, who was in the car during the abduction, said Sunday that he and Anderson shared an uncommon bond.

“Our relationship was much broader and deeper, and more important and meaningful, than just that one incident,” Mell said.

Mell credited Anderson with launching his career in journalism, pushing for the young photographer to be hired by the AP full-time. After Anderson was released, their friendship deepened. They were best man at each other’s weddings and were in frequent contact.

Anderson’s humor often hid the PTSD he acknowledged suffering for years afterward.

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“The AP got a couple of British experts in hostage decompression, clinical psychiatrists, to counsel my wife and myself, and they were very useful,” he said in 2018. “But one of the problems I had was I did not recognize sufficiently the damage that had been done.

“So, when people ask me, you know, ‘Are you over it?’ Well, I don’t know. No, not really. It’s there. I don’t think about it much these days; it’s not central to my life. But it’s there.”

Anderson said his faith as a Christian helped him let go of the anger. And something his wife later told him also helped him to move on: “If you keep the hatred you can’t have the joy.”

At the time of his abduction, Anderson was engaged to be married, and his future wife was six months pregnant with Sulome.

The couple married soon after his release but divorced a few years later. Although they remained on friendly terms, Anderson and his daughter were estranged for years.

“I love my dad very much. My dad has always loved me. I just didn’t know that because he wasn’t able to show it to me,” Sulome told the AP in 2017.

A Palestinian baby in Gaza is born an orphan in an urgent cesarean section after an Israeli strike

Sabreen came into the world seconds after her mother left it. Their home was hit in an Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Father and daughter reconciled after the publication of her critically acclaimed 2017 book “The Hostage’s Daughter,” in which she told of traveling to Lebanon to confront and eventually forgive one of her father’s kidnappers.

“I think she did some extraordinary things, went on a very difficult personal journey, but also accomplished a pretty important piece of journalism doing it,” Anderson said. “She’s now a better journalist than I ever was.”

Terry Alan Anderson was born Oct. 27, 1947. He spent his early childhood in the Lake Erie town of Vermilion, Ohio, where his father was a police officer.

After graduating from high school, he turned down a scholarship to the University of Michigan in favor of enlisting in the Marines, where he rose to the rank of staff sergeant and served in the Vietnam War.

After returning home, he enrolled at Iowa State University, where he graduated with a double major in journalism and political science and soon went to work for the AP. He reported from Kentucky, Japan and South Africa before arriving in Lebanon in 1982, just as the country was descending into chaos.

“Actually, it was the most fascinating job I’ve ever had in my life,” he told the Review. “It was intense. War’s going on — it was very dangerous in Beirut. Vicious civil war, and I lasted about three years before I got kidnapped.”

Anderson was married and divorced three times. In addition to Sulome, he is survived by daughter Gabrielle Anderson from his first marriage; a sister, Judy Anderson; and a brother, Jack Anderson.

“Though my father’s life was marked by extreme suffering during his time as a hostage in captivity, he found a quiet, comfortable peace in recent years,” Sulome said in a statement Sunday. “I know he would choose to be remembered not by his very worst experience, but through his humanitarian work with the Vietnam Children’s Fund, the Committee to Protect Journalists, homeless veterans and many other incredible causes.”

Memorial arrangements were pending, she said.

Associated Press writers Meldrum and Weber reported from New York and Los Angeles, respectively. Retired AP writer John Rogers in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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Write A Letter To Your Friend About The Longest Journey Made By You In English

Frazer Town, Bangalore

26 December 2022

Dear friend,

I hope this letter finds you in the best of health. I am also doing well on this side, just recovering from a long and tiring journey. I am going to tell you about the longest journey made by me.

I have been an introvert my entire life and wished to spend my life in my relaxing home in Assam. But when I got a good offer for a job in Bangalore, I couldn’t ignore it. To shift my stuff to my new home, I had to make a long train journey. It is single-handedly the longest journey that has ever been made by me. The duration of the train from my station to Bangalore’s station was just over two days. In addition to the long hours, I couldn’t sleep properly on the train. But I kept myself distracted by watching movies. Finally, after two days, my journey came to an end.

I will tell you more about Bangalore in my next letter. Until then, take care!

Your friend, Lovey C

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The Longest Movie Ever Made Would Take You More Than a Month to Watch

By michele debczak | mar 21, 2023, 4:30 pm edt.

Is there an ideal movie running time ? While the typical film lasts between 90 minutes and 2 hours, plenty of top-tier directors have successfully justified turning their features into 3-hour-plus cinematic affairs (to varying results). But it would be safe to say that the longest film you have ever sat thought has got nothing on  Logistics —a record-breaking project released in Sweden in 2012. Clocking in at a total runtime of 35 days and 17 hours, Logistics is by far the longest movie ever made.

The Longest Movie Ever Made

Logistics isn’t your standard Hollywood epic. The experimental film, which was conceived and directed by Swedish filmmakers Erika Magnusson and Daniel Andersson, lacks any conventional structure. According to the film’s website, the concept started with the question: Where do all the gadgets come from? Magnusson and Andersson attempted to answer that question by following the life cycle of a pedometer.

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The story begins at a store in Stockholm, where the item is sold, then moves backwards to chronicle its journey to consumers. Logistics takes viewers on a truck , a freight train, a massive container ship, and finally to a factory in China’s Bao’an district. The trip unfolds in real time, so audiences get a truly—and perhaps painfully—accurate sense of the time and distance required to deliver gadgets to the people who use them on the other side of the world. You can watch a 72-minute edit of the film above.

Many people would have trouble sitting through some of the longest conventional films in history. Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet (1996) lasts 242 minutes, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s  Cleopatra (1963) is a whopping 248 minutes long. But sitting down to watch all 857 hours of Logistics straight through is nearly physically impossible (though intrepid journalist and film critic Ashley Darrow did just that in 2022).

Fortunately, dedicating more than a month of your life to watching Logistics straight through is not the only way to enjoy this work of art. On the project’s website, Logistics has been broken down into short, two-minute clips—one for each day of the journey. You can watch the abridged version of the epic experiment here , and brag about it later.

A version of this story ran in 2020; it has been updated for 2023.

Longest Road Trips in the World You Could Drive

Everyone loves a road trip – out on the open road, free to explore wherever and whenever you want. with a classic playlist on shuffle, plenty of car snacks and a roughly drawn route into the unknown, there’s a reason why road trips feel synonymous with chasing adventure and freedom. with this list, we’re focusing on distance, drawing up some of the longest and most ambitious road trips we can think of. grab a bag, a map and some friends, and head for the sunset… .

London to Cape Town 

This one’s a classic, and many brave adventurers have crossed this monster journey off their list. One of the longest north to south journeys in the world, the fastest known completion of this route was 13 days, 8 hours and 48 minutes, as part of a publicity campaign for the new Ford Cortina. This beat the previous champions by 18 minutes! If, however, you’re keen to actually soak up the incredible sights, a month is likely the minimum time needed to cover this two-continent trip.

Starting with the Eurostar to Calais, passengers can enjoy scenic drives through rural France and Spain, take the ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar and down into the heart of Africa. For those that make it across the harsh Saharan Desert, the road evens out to provide breath-taking drives across countless National Parks, from the primate-filled rainforest reserve of Dja Faunal in Cameroon, to the lion and elephant filled landscape of Etosha National Park in Namibia. Pulling into Cape Town at the southern tip of South Africa, this drive will have covered 13,207km (8,207 miles) and 13 countries.

Australian Coastal Loop

Driving ‘The Big Lap’ is another adventure that is often planned and rarely attempted. With huge swathes of the continent uninhabited due to its searingly hot desert climate, Australian road trips can be lethal to those without a map and plenty of backup fuel. The best bet for anyone looking to cover the whole country is to stick to Highway 1, a 14,935km (9280 miles) long highway that essentially follows the entire Australian coast in one big loop. Starting in Sydney, drivers can follow the coastline up to Brisbane, past Cairns, Darwin, Port Hedland, Perth and Adelaide, before hitting the spectacular Great Ocean Road to Melbourne and finally, back to Sydney.

The drive is perfectly possible to do within a month, but three months will give drivers time to better explore each stop fully. Because of the size of Australia, it is important to also keep an eye on the seasons. It is recommended to start the north in winter and summer in the south, following the milder temperatures round as you go.

Europe to Ulaanbaatar

Centuries ago, nomadic settlers made their way along the central Asian steppe, seeking new lands and adventures. Now you can follow their route, making your way through Eastern Europe and down into Turkey. Crossing the Istanbul bridge, Europe slowly turns into Asia, swapping crumbling Christian churches for Islamic minarets and the sweeping rural expanse of Lake Van. From Turkey you have two choices, head down through the ancient Persian settlements of Iran, or up over the Caspian Sea into Russia. Both routes reconvene in the sweeping grasslands of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, before the Gobi Desert springs over the horizon.

In recent years, adventurers have made this journey into a challenge, dubbing it the Mongol Rally . Each year, participants sign up, buy a beaten-up old car and race from Europe to Mongolia. Generally broadcasting their progress (or non-progress) on social media, the challenge is designed to be as disaster-filled as possible, creating opportunity for “motoring stupidity on a global scale” and unexpected adventures. If this sounds like your cup of tea, sign up for the Mongol Rally 2022 , and start looking for your rubbish vehicle!

Pan-American Highway 

So you might have done a cross-US road trip, but how about dreaming a bit bigger? This mammoth road trip covers almost the entirety of the Americas, from northernmost Alaska, down through Canada and the US, into Colombia, coastal Peru and Chile. The only break to the journey is the Darien Gap , a roadless region preventing driving access between Panama and Colombia (and by extension the entirety of North America to South America). Though there have been several attempts to build a highway, the impenetrable dense rainforest and prevalence of tropical diseases (not to mention the importance of protecting the indigenous communities that remain in the forests), means a road crossing has never been possible.

The only option, bar a famously hellish 5-day ferry journey , is to take a flight, but once safely into Medellin or Bogota, the journey south can carry on unimpeded. Assuming one drives from Prudhoe Bay in Alaska to Panama City, and then Medellin in Colombia to Quellon in Chile, this insane road trip should clock up a cool 23,662km (14,703 miles). Assuming you drove for 8 hours a day, this trip would take you a month. Those who have done it, however, take anytime between 2 months to 2 years.

Trans-Eurasian Belt

Our final route on this list doesn’t actually exist yet. It is an imagined driving route that follows much the same path as the Mongol Rally – from London to Ulaanbaatar. Yet once it hits Mongolia, it carries on, heading up through the easternmost point of Siberia and crossing the Bering Strait into Alaska. From there, the entirety of the Americas is possible, even linking down to South America. This journey is not yet possible, since the Bering Strait remains unconnected. However, plans for a Trans-Eurasian Belt Development are in the works, and we may soon see a connecting bridge be built to truly connect the world.

Who knows what such a connecting bridge will do for global trade, as well as perceptions of East and West? All we know is, it sounds like an epic road trip.

If you're planning a road trip across multiple countries, remember to get yourself covered with adequate car insurance just in case.

Starting from Skratch? Here are a Few Tips to Get You Started:

https://www.outbackcrossing.com.au/Touring/How_Long_Does_it_Take_to_Travel_Around_Australia.shtml

https://medium.com/@katheryn.watson/mapped-the-longest-road-trips-f6cf454b967c

https://www.skratch.world

World's Longest Driving Routes at a Glance:

🇬🇧london to cape town🇿🇦.

Distance: 13,207 km (8,207 miles)

Number of Countries: 13

Time Taken: 17 days (assuming 8 hours a day driving)

🇦🇺Australian Coastal Loop🇦🇺

Distance: 14,935 km (9,280 miles)

Number of Countries: 1

Time Taken: 19 days (assuming 8 hours a day driving)

🇵🇹Lisbon to Ulaanbaatar🇲🇳

Distance: 13,000 km (8,077 miles)

Number of Countries: 16

🇺🇸Pan-American Highway🇨🇱

Distance: 23,662 km (14,703 miles)

Number of Countries: 12

Time Taken: 30 days (assuming 8 hours a day driving)

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The largest snake to have ever existed may have prowled India. All about Vasuki indicus

It is said to be longer than a T-Rex. The remains of one of the largest snakes that ever lived, a creature estimated at up to 15 metres in length, have been unearthed in a mine in Gujarat. We tell you more

In a tale as intriguing as it is colossal, researchers have unearthed evidence of a gargantuan serpent that once roamed ancient India’s landscapes some 47 million years ago. This prehistoric behemoth, now dubbed Vasuki indicus after the mythical serpent adorning the neck of the Hindu deity Lord Shiva, stands as a testament to the awe-inspiring diversity of the natural world.

A serpent of myth and legend

Measuring longer than a school bus and dwarfing even the largest modern anacondas and pythons, Vasuki indicus is believed to have been one of the largest snakes to have ever existed. With scientific curiosity as boundless as the creature itself, researchers have embarked on a journey to unravel the secrets of this ancient titan.

“Here we report the discovery of a giant madtsoiid snake, one of the largest snakes ever reported, from an interval corresponding to a warm Middle Eocene period (~47 million years ago) of India,” write the researchers in their published paper on Nature , a British scientific journal.

The snake was likely a slow-moving, ambush predator that subdued its prey by constriction or squeezing them to death, according to the study, which appeared on Thursday.

The report’s two authors, based at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee in Uttarakhand, analysed 27 fossilised vertebrae — some still connected to one another — that were uncovered at a coal mine in Gujarat.

The beginning of the discovery

The saga of Vasuki indicus began in 2005 when the cache of fossilised vertebrae was initially mistaken for remnants of an ancient crocodile-like creature. It wasn’t until 2023 that researchers made a startling revelation: they were in the presence of the remains of an ancient serpent of unparalleled size and grandeur.

With painstaking precision, the team analysed these fossilised vertebrae, piecing together clues about the creature’s size, habitat, and behaviour. What emerged was a portrait of a creature so vast that its very existence seemed to defy belief.

How large was the snake?

“There are a number of possible reasons for its large size which range from favourable environment with ample food resources to lack of natural predators,” coauthors Debajit Datta, a postdoctoral fellow, and Sunil Bajpai, a professor of palaeontology, told CNN in a joint email.

“Another driving force could be the prevalence of warmer climatic conditions than at present,” they said.

Based on the size of the preserved vertebrae, the researchers estimated that the snake would have been 10.9 meters (36 feet) to 15.2 meters (50 feet) in length, based on two different calculation methods, with a broad and cylindrical body.

Datta and Bajpai think Vasuki indicus likely lived on land rather than in water, similar to anacondas, but its size probably prevented it from climbing trees.

They cautioned that their estimates of its size should be taken carefully because they didn’t have a complete skeleton. However, they suggested that Vasuki indicus could have been as large as Titanoboa, the largest known snake species.

Titanoboa, discovered from fossils in Colombia, weighed around 1,140 kilogrammes (2,500 pounds) and measured about 13 meters (42.7 feet) from nose to tail tip.

The climate connection

As with many mysteries of the natural world, the story of Vasuki indicus is intricately intertwined with the climate of its time. Snakes, as cold-blooded creatures, are highly sensitive to environmental temperature, with warmer climates providing ideal conditions for growth and development.

“Their internal body temperature fluctuates with the ambient temperature of the environment,” the authors said. “So, higher ambient temperatures would have increased the internal body temperature and metabolic rate of Vasuki which in turn would have allowed it to grow so large.”

Datta and Bajpai said the snake lived in a coastal marsh and swamp. “We cannot say precisely what sort of animals Vasuki ate,” they said. “Associated fossils collected from the rocks that yielded Vasuki include ray fish, bony fish (catfish), turtles, crocodilians and even primitive whales. Vasuki may have preyed upon some of these.”

As the saga of Vasuki indicus continues to captivate the imagination, one thing remains abundantly clear: in the annals of natural history, truth is often stranger than fiction.

With inputs from agencies

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