Travel

Most Dangerous Roads In The World.

Update: Please also check the second part of Most Dangerous Roads in the World

It’s hard to imagine how many dangerous roads there are. When working on this post I studied about 10 resources to find out that there are over 50 dangerous and scary roads and these are just the most famous we’ve heard of. There are different factors of danger so it’s really hard to say what roads are the most dangerous of all the dangerous roads in the world.

In our post today you will see the roads that are considered the most dangerous and that caught my attention because of the fact that the roads shouldn’t naturally be in those places. What I mean here is that it looks like the Nature has created the borders that shouldn’t be crossed using huge rocks, steep slopes, stones, volcanoes but the human beings were so stubborn that they finally erected the roads and trails, but what we still can’t do is ensure the safety. There’s always the risk that something will happen but the risk has never stopped the human yet.

The North Yungas Road (Road of Death), Bolivia

North Yungas Road also known as the Road of Death is considered the most dangerous road in the world. It stretches for about 40 mountain-hugging miles and is only 10 feet wide.

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Sichuan-Tibet Highway, China

The highway is made right on the mountains, it’s high, pretty narrow, cloudy and definitely dangerous. The overall length of the highway is 2,028 kilometers.

Pan American Highway

The Pan American Highway is a network of roads stretching for nearly about 30,000 miles from Alaska to the lower reaches of South America. This is the world’s longest “motorable road,” according to Guinness World Records. Some roads are widely knows by narrow curves, steep cliffs, flash floods and landslides.
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Coastal Roads, Croatia

Compared to the other roads from our post, the coastal roads of Croatia may look childish, but that’s not the case. The coastal roads and the fast-driving Croats that crowd them probably account for more deaths and injuries than accidents associated with unexploded ordinance ever do.

Guoliang Tunnel in Taihang mountains (China)

The name of the tunnel translates from Chinese as the “Road that does not tolerate any mistakes”. First the tunnel was created by the villagers from the remote area of the Taihang Mountains to get a way out to the outside world. Presently the road is 15 feet high and 12 feet wide which is pretty scary for the drivers. The tunnel has 30 windows to enjoy the scenes.
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Halsema Highway, Philippines

Magnificent but dangerous road on the island of Luzon. Apart from the unpaved parts of the roads, landslides and big stones you can be stopped by the clouds.
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Grimsel Pass, Switzerland

Grimsel Pass which is 2165 m. high is a Swiss high mountain pass between the valley of the Rhone River and the Haslital valley. Taking into account you are on a mountain, you can’t expect much safety.

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Taroko, Taiwan

Taroko Mountain is a mountain in Taiwan with an elevation of 3,282 meters and it speaks for itself. Check the photos to get an idea of the little stones that can cross the road.
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Karakoram Highway, Pakistan to China

Karakoram Highway is the highest paved road on the planet connecting Pakistan with China. It’s a popular tourist route, with motorists stopping to view K2 and other stratosphere-scraping peaks from the pavement.
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Skippers Canyon, New Zealand

The Canyon road is carved from schist rock and travels through some of the most spectacular scenery in the New Zealand. That’s a narrow and unsealed road about 22 km long. Rental car companies warn clients not to take their cars on this dramatic and at times terrifying road which branches off the Coronet Peak ski field road.
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Anastasia

View Comments

  • I guess now I will take the ferry to Bela Coola, BC and drive up "the Hill."

    After seeing these roads, the hill doesn't seem so bad anymore.

    • We drove "the hill" twice, up and down, with our motorhome and did not even realise it. For us Swiss, it is nothing.

  • those mountain pass are really dangerous specially those aren't cemented and high risk running there in rainy season

  • I have seen some roads such as these in southern Mexico, Guatemala and Especially Honduras. I was on a bus trip going up to see the Mayan ruins: Copan. People actually screamed a couple of times.

    The west coast road going down Baja California is also in the league. But bar none, the scarriest road I have ever been on is the one winding, down, down to Chichicastenango, Guatemala.

  • Enough to make one buy a helicopter, or say screw it and stay where ever you started. Excellent research/photos/post.

  • I was scared in a car on the Skippers Road! The land is unstable and you may come around a corner to find that lots of pieces of rock have fallen down. There are vertical drops to the Shotover River below. It's one lane wide and was built between 1883 and 1890 to improve access for miners. It's the only 19th century road in New Zealand that has never had a major upgrade!

    • indeed..
      parts of it are more dangerous/isolated/oxygen less/paved with ice (not snow) with waterfalls making there way through the road and a cold sand desert without any directions n much much more !!

    • Yes indeed. The traveller on the Manali-Leh highway is subject to extreme changes in weather, flash floods, devastating mudslides, frequent rockfall, road collapse and low oxygen levels, which can have extraordinary effects on engine function.