Road to Death

Crazy Routes in China, Andes, Albania & New Zealand


Necessity may dictate that you choose the "road less traveled", but for goodness sake, leave weaker-nerved passengers behind. They might experience life-changing (and underwear-changing) circumstances that they will never forget, or forgive.

One of the Chinese military roads to "boost the morale of their troops"


and here is how they navigate it:

The Skippers Canyon Road near Queenstown:

"This road is made from a very narrow cut in the middle of a sheer cliff face. The large tourist buses go along it, and it's so narrow that if two vehicles have to pass each other, one vehicle might have to reverse for anything up to 3 kilometres of winding narrow road to get to a place wide enough to pass. It is the SCARIEST road you could imagine..."

A few aerial shots first:



and this is how it looks close up, with sheer drops just outside the single lane (with almost not enough space for tires)

Tirana to Elbasan Road in Albania

This is a hairy route, very high, badly maintained with high volume of heavy truck traffic - count on these Albanian drivers to be dare-devils, too. Whatever pictures we could get, look pretty serious:

The cool thing about this road is that it leads to various interesting "rabbit trails" with ancient ruins at the end.

some of the bridges there look pretty ancient too, and require some extra faith that they'll hold.

Some other bad road predicaments.

This road in Sahara is totally beset by drifting dunes: they change location and are hard to get rid of, considering the desert is all around it.

Potholes from hell.

This is pretty extreme, I'd say...

Stelvio Pass Road - redefining switchbacks - A Scenic yet Dangerous Road!

Height - 2757 meters

Location - in the Italian Alps, near Bormio and Sulden, 75 km from Bolzano, close to Swiss border. (The road connects the Valtellina with the upper Adige valley and Merano)

Claim to fame - "the highest paved mountain pass in the Eastern Alps, and the second highest in the Alps, after the Col de l'Iseran (2770 m)"

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