World's Scariest Roads

Location: Between La Paz and the town of Coroico

Fear factor: In running as the most dangerous road on the planet, the North Yungas Road—aka the “Road of Death”—stretches for some 40 mountain-hugging miles, as narrow as 10 feet in spots and with 1,000-foot drops straight to a rainforest below. Guardrails? You only wish.

Location: China’s Taihang Mountains

Fear factor: Let’s just say its name translates to the “Road that does not tolerate any mistakes.” In 1972, villagers in a remote area of the Taihang Mountains chiseled a 3/4-mile-long tunnel through a mountain for access to the outside world. Today, the route—15 feet high and 12 feet wide—is a tight squeeze for vehicles, twisting past the tunnel’s 30 “windows,” which provide views off the precipice to a tumbling abyss hundreds of feet below.

Location: Island of Luzon

Fear factor: Like many under-maintained mountain roads, landslides are a hazard on the Halsema Highway, where big stones and debris tumble from peaks. And along with the cloud forests comes mist that can ruin visibility. Tracing a circuitous path, this road crosses the massive Cordillera Central mountain range on the Island of Luzon, and many sections remain unpaved.

Location: Karakoram mountain range in Pakistan

Fear factor: The highest paved road on the planet, the Karakoram Highway winds through the mountains at an altitude above 16,000, eventually connecting to China. It’s a popular tourist route, with motorists stopping to view K2 and other stratosphere-scraping peaks from the pavement. Drivers can easily suffer altitude sickness on the 800-mile highway, which slinks along rivers and crosses arid planes before climbing the endless inclines of the Karakoram.

Location: Russian Far East and Siberia

Fear factor: Actors Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman traversed this 1,200-mile route, nicknamed the Road of Bones, on a round-the-world motorcycle journey in 2004. Constructed in the Stalin era, the Road of Bones gets its name from labor camp inmates and other workers who died during construction, some of whom are buried beneath or near the road. This wilderness route runs past some of the coldest inhabited places on earth. In winter, motorists drive across ice on frozen rivers in lieu of ferries.

Location: Through the vast deserts of Western Australia

Fear factor: Cattlemen 100 years ago pushed this 1,100-mile route through the endless deserts of Down Under, digging more than 50 wells along its length. Recreational four-wheel-drive convoys can now cross the desolation with the aid of fuel drops, forging endless sand and sun-baked earth to traverse one of the least inhabitable places on the planet.

Location: In the mountains above Morretes

Fear factor: This old mule route winds through a rainforest and crosses moss-covered bridges. Cobblestone paves parts of its length, slippery and dangerous on the route’s sharp turns, and hydrangea plants push in to line the lush lane with blue flowers.

Location: Algiers, Algeria to Lagos, Nigeria

Fear factor: From pavement to sand, the 2,800-mile Trans-Sahara Highway traverses three countries—Algeria, Niger, and Nigeria—on its journey through the largest sand desert on Earth. Fuel and water are unavailable for much of its sun-scorched length, and sand storms some years move immense drifts and dunes onto the road, blocking the route for days at a time.

Location: Jungle route from Ledo, India into Burma

Fear factor: Built during World War II at the cost of thousands of lives, the Stilwell Road (aka The Ledo Road) climbs mountain passes, snakes through the jungle, and crosses more than 100 rivers and streams in its 1,079-mile length. Constructed as a supply route by Western Allies, the road today is returning to jungle, little used and inaccessible for much of its length behind Burma’s totalitarian curtain.

Location: Between Santa Ana and the Selva Blue wilderness lodge

Fear factor: The route, a 100-mile jungle labyrinth, is a 20-foot-wide gravel track that shrinks to a grassy two-track and crosses log bridges over rushing Amazonia tributaries. The Caravana motorcycle festival chose this often-flooded route through the Amazon Basin of northern Bolivia in 2002.