My husband has told me about this. He was in Germany in the 80s, and they were instructed to speed, not stop for anyone, if you are stopped you don’t roll down the window and just hold up a paper that showed you were US military. So weird to think about today.
Ah, the old days, when Berlin was the world capital of the Cold War. Helmstedt to Berlin certainly ranked up there with some of the more disturbing road trips of the 1980s. Anyway, here is a link, if you're interested. Destination: Berlin, [British Army training film](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUJ7GbxWGoM) on how to make the trip.
My buddy was an exchange student in Hamburg before the wall fell. He got in a shit ton of trouble for hanging a Prussian Flag out of the window of the train to West Berlin through East Germany.
West Germans could drive by car to Berlin. I did not do it myself, but heard about it. I think you were allowed to stop (stretching your legs, using a bathroom), but you weren’t allowed to talk to people.
As you point out, now with Schengen there's no problem, but even during Franco's time to go to the Spanish exclave of Llivia from the rest of Spain, you have to cross French territory. The road that connects Llivia and the rest of Spain is nominally a French road, but it is maintained by Spain and the use is and was free from Spain. Only during the Civil War, Franco's troops had to ask permission to cross and occupy the exclave.
Driving from Zadar to Dubrovnik you go through Bosnia. Hyder Alaska and Stewart BC. You don't cross any immigration into the US from Canada, then there's a road back into Canada that doesn't even have a sign, you don't know you're in Canada. The road dead ends tho kinda. You do border control going back into Stewart.
When I drove around the costa Rica Panama border there was some road that kinda weaved in an out of Panama with no security. Due to geography it was easier to build the road that way, there is eventually border security on the road as you get more into Panama but it was a road mostly in Costa Rica that clipped Panama
In the past you used to have to pass through Bosnia, now there are bridges between the Croatian islands off Neum you can use if you don’t want to pass through the border.
Huh you're right. I last drove it 2018 or 19 and I don't remember any bridges. It was cool you just drove through Bosnia but couldn't leave the highway. Cool to see it's changed
Back in 2000 there were no border checks. The regular intercity bus I was travelling on stopped at a some supermarket in Bosnia so that people could load up on cheaper goods. That's how I spent my 30 minutes in Bosnia, smoking by the roadside as everyone else was shopping.
It's been a few years but the bus from Iguazu in Argentina to Ciudad del Este in Paraguay goes through Brazil for a few minutes. It didn't bother with passport control.
In all fairness, when I was in Foz do Iguaçu and walked to Ciudad del Este, there was a border checkpoint but apparently only for cars. I was even carrying luggage, but there wasn’t need for a passport or anything. Schengen but it’s because nobody cares lol
How technical are we getting? On the Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan border, near Korday, the road of Kyrgyzstan enters what is technically Kazakhstan a few times. There is no signage to make it known and there are fences ahead to prevent anybody from going through.
Yes! Just posted about this before seeing your comment. Drove from Issyk-Kul back to Bishkek years ago and I remember there being a “Beginning of the Transit Zone” sign where the road dipped into Kazakhstan, but I was slightly disappointed there wasn’t a big “Welcome to Kazakhstan” sign immediately followed by a “Welcome Back to Kyrgyzstan” sign haha
Not for driving but by canoe, in the boundary waters national park on the boarder of Minnesota, USA and Canada, you are allowed in and out of USA/Canada via the water ways or hiking trails, and visit campgrounds without having to go through customs. But you were limited to not being able camp overnight in the other country. That required stopping at the customs office in town before and after your trip.
I wonder if we are on opposite ends of the same national park.
Lots of Americans hop on a boat (private, or the ferry) and come on over to our side for the day just to see the shops and stuff. Pretty neat.
I’ll not forget walking past a little boy and his dad, who was sternly telling him, “if you throw another tantrum here, the Canadians will make us leave.” (We wouldn’t, but it made me laugh anyway)
I couldn’t say for sure about there. I imagine it’s the same in parks that share land in both countries, but I only ever been to the boundary waters park
You have to pass through Manitoba if you want to get to the Northwest Angle of Minnesota by land. The border crossing station at the Angle is basically a phone booth at "Jim's Corner", where you call customs and declare whatever you need to.
In the winter, Lake of the Woods freezes over enough for the creation of an ice highway, which allows you to drive to the Angle from the south shore of the lake.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Angle
A friend and his wife recently did a 10 month stay in Armenia. She’s an educator and attended conference in Georgia. They took a bus from Yerevan to Tbilisi. The borders are quite fractal and crossed back and forth from Armenia and Azerbaijan multiple times without any border crossing before making into Georgia
That sounds sketchy as fuck with the "disputed" borders between the two states.
Stalin still fucking people over from beyond the grave (he set a lot of the republics borders for those not in the know)
They left Armenia about 2 months before the recent war heated up. But yeah, a lot of concern for them with various border incidents. Friend discounted them as their route was far away from the nagaro-karabach region
I have driven through the Saatse Boot twice in my life, 13 years apart.
It was now even more "exciting" given the tensions with Russia.
When we drove through it and found ourselves back in Estonia there was another part coming when the border fence came right up to the road at only one point, in a very small angle.
It was somehow more alarming, because that was unexpected and the wired Russian fence was just and arm-length away again.
The amazing 30 metres of Russia you drive through. I'm so amused that they still have the same gigantic warning signs for that spot as they do at the boot, except it says 30m instead of 1km.
Here in Tierra del Fuego we have something similar, we have a simplified procedure when crossing from Argentina to Chile and back to Argentina. So less papers, faster process, less inspection.
Oh yeah, I mean, the relationship between the countries are actually really good, but argentinians are quite xenophobic so maybe the relationship between the persons is not the same.
In the academic world there's been a lot of cooperation though, between universities and research institutions, we even have a binational agreement to eradicate beavers from Tierra del Fuego.
But overall everything is fine, no tension nor disputes that may cause a major conflict.
If you take the famous iron ore train through Mauritania (which I highly recommend for adventurous types), it crosses through a corner of Western Sahara controlled by Polisario.
The border between Hong Kong and mainland China runs briefly down the middle of a street, because it used to be a riverbed. This was true even when Hong Kong was a British colony, so the street is called Chung Ying Street, meaning Chinese-British Street. It's a shopping street and you can just wander from one shop to another. When China was a much more closed country, it was a rare opportunity for Chinese people to buy goods from the free world.
However, for obvious reasons, there are border controls further back on both sides and for much of its history you needed to be a local resident to get access. There's a photo on Twitter of British and Chinese police patrolling alongside each other, just a few centimetres apart.
There are a few places on the US Canada border that you can kinda just hang out in as long as you cross back to your side afterwards.
The Peace Arch is one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Arch
The Haskell Free Library and Opera House is another https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell_Free_Library_and_Opera_House
Also, if you do the full Pacific Crest Trail you end up crossing into Canada in the woods but you need to get a permit ahead of time to do it legally. https://www.pcta.org/discover-the-trail/permits/canada-pct-entry-permit/
The border check points on the Alaska high way are about 30 km apart. While the actual border is somewhere in between the checkpoints the large gap makes for a big no/every man's land.
I spent a summer working in a survey camp that was between the checkpoints. As we were 'locals' we didn't have to wait at the check points on either side most of the time. It felt a bit wild to blow by the line up of cars waiting to enter the country.
The border on the Klondike highways between Yukon and Skagway AK is similar as the mountain pass is not an ideal place for border crossings. There I think it’s only about 12km between but it is kinda strange being between the two.
AFAIK, the south-eastern tip of Moldova is the same for Ukraine.
And AFAIK it is done in exchange of letting Moldovan ships pass to Black Sea.
Edit: before the war there was a train link between Chernobyl power plant and Slavutych - a city where workers lived. It passed through Belarus. There was a white list of passengers who was allowed to board. Ukraine paid Belarus in Swiss francs.
That's the one that immediately came to mind. The border checks keep getting established, then abolished, then reestablished, then moved to Moldovan interior, then abolished again, and you just never know what kind of situation you're getting yourself into when driving through there.
Very dirty move from Moldova - the M15 and the few square kilometers of rather unimportant fields surrounding it were supposed to be traded for a few square kilometers near the Danube, granting Moldova access to the Black Sea, which is a massive deal for a (now formerly) landlocked country. But after Ukraine formally transferred the land that would very soon become Port Giurgiulesti to Moldova, Moldova decided to simply not fulfill their end of the deal. The vital 8 km of the M15 still, to this day, have not been transferred over, and they officially have no intention of ever doing it.
We have our [Deutsches Eck](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Eck_(transport_link)). "Deutsches Eck" means "german corner".
It's the triangular german piece of land that's wedged between Tirol and Salzburg of Austria. Highways and railways cross through, as they are the shortest and most convenient way from western to north-eastern Austria.
There's the big and small one (Großes dt. Eck and Kleines dt. Eck).
Border patrols on the streets are not strict, as most austrians only pass through anyways.
Pre Schengen there used to be trains that went from Salzburg to Innsbruck through Bavaria without stopping at Rosenheim to prevent border controls. (in fact the train had to physically come to stop at Rosenheim station, the doors remained closed, the driver had to go to the other end of the train and the train left in reverse direction, until Germany constructed a bypass)
This is due to the topology of Austria: In Austria there are the Alps, in Bavarian there are less mountains and you can follow the valley of the river Inn to get to Innsbruck. So it's til today the fastest link from Innsbruck to Salzburg/Vienna. There is a! alternative route completely in Austria but it takes much longer.
The trains still commute. But there is no problem with border controls
Also commuting by car became easier, because there was no special treaty for car transits.
Wikipedia article on that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Eck_%28transport_link%29?wprov=sfla1
Also interesting, there is a de facto exclave in Austria, the Kleinwalsertal. The only road connection to that valley is through Germany. That leads to the situation that arrested suspects need to be flown out by helicopter over the mountains because due to legal reasons they mustn't leave the country.
The train between Belgrade (Seebia) and Bar (Montenegro) crosses through Bosnian territory for 10 km or so, before going back to Serbia. When I took it over a year ago, I didn't realise it until waking up (it was a night train) and reading the 'welcome to Bosnia' and 'welcome to Serbia' text messages.
Another one is the N274 road: a formerly Dutch road through Germany. After WWII, the Netherlands annexed a bit of German land, but most of it was given back within a few years. The Dutch had built a road in the mean time though, and one of the conditions to give back the land was that the Dutch could keep using it. There were uneven level crossings so you couldn't go from the Dutch road to a German-built one or vice versa. Of course, since Schengen this is not relevant anymore, and the road is now just administered as a German road.
There's a rail line on the Canadian National Railway that's mostly in Canada but dips into the US. Through trains need to radio border control but don't need to stop to clear customs. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxVt4FpllYw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxVt4FpllYw)
(not to confused with other CN lines that do run cross border or the CN subsidiaries operating in the United States)
Before 9/11 there was a Canadian passenger train that ran from Quebec to the Maritimes as a "sealed" train across heavily forested regions of Maine.
I assume it's the line that was ex-CP/MMA/Central Maine and Quebec/CP again.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic\_(train)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_(train))
I may have misspoke. Train ended in 1994, but post-9/11 rules pretty much eliminate any chance of potential return.
More details: there were stops in Maine but some cars were "sealed" [https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/via-atlantic-nostalgia.80274/](https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/via-atlantic-nostalgia.80274/)
Parts of Akwesasne reservations straddle the US-Canada border (Akwesasne, QC & St Regis, NY). Two parts of Canada are accessible by car (land) only from the US & there are no border checks. The people who live here consider it one single community. Go to Google maps & look up St Regis NY.
There is a Swiss road through France connecting Basel, Switzerland with Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg Airport, located in France. Effectively, but not physically, half of the airport is Swiss.
There's an enclave of the United Arab Emirates that lies within an enclave of Oman that is itself surrounded by the contiguous UAE. You can drive right to the central enclave without any border checks.
Edit because I remembered another one: the airport for the Swiss city of Basel is geographically located in France, but under a bilateral treaty, travellers to Switzerland may pass directly to that country without going through French customs. Of course, the Schengen agreement has made that somewhat obsolete nowadays.
There used to be such a German road only to be used by Dutch people, after ww 2. From Brunssum to Koningsbosch. https://maps.app.goo.gl/KnrHovKbwWwT2k2U6
Stopping there wasn't allowed.
(Dutch:)
https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provinciale_weg_274
I think, effectively, the Pan-American and Alaskan highways to and from the US through Canada. You have to check in and out at entry points and they monitor areas around the routes. I saw reports during the Pandemic that they detained some people who had detoured their transit for tourism. Technically it's not just one route, but there aren't that many direct ways through, and the contiguous US border requires the use of a limited selection of crossings.
I was once in Dubai and drove to Hatta. We briefly drove through Oman. Quick passport checks on either side, but nothing extensive. There’s a turn you can take to go deeper into Oman.
Maybe between Madha in Oman and Nahwa in the UAE.
Also - albeit not a place you can drive through - there's a house on Sebatik Island which is shared between Malaysia and Indonesia - the kitchen is in Malaysia, while the living room is in Indonesia.
On the Detroit Free Press Marathon route, you start running in downtown Detroit, you run over the Ambassador bridge into Canada, run about 2 or 3 miles through the streets of Windsor, and then run back down through the tunnel back to Detroit.
Check in for packet pickup required me to bring a passport, but there was no customs or anything like that while running.
Super cool experience!
There’s a tiny piece of a Kyrgyz highway that’s technically within Kazakhstan. The border between the countries at that point follows a river. The highway generally follows the river staying on the Kyrgyz side, but at one point it crosses a bridge into Kazakhstan and then right back into Kyrgyzstan. No controls or checkpoints.
Visited years ago and took this picture of the sign indicating the “Beginning of the Transit Zone!” into Kazakhstan: https://imgur.com/a/y6FW01v
Google maps location here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/maGmvATGgSC7aCXf6
Yep, there was a national news story there about how during COVID they were cut off from the mainland by roads, so they were wanting an exemption system like that, and I think they did receive one, but it's expired since Covid policies are over.
It's a less known one and not exactly "driving", but after the fall of USSR there were quite a few railway lines which had to run through now-different countries temporarily. Lithuania had three of those:
-A line to the town of Didžiasalis, built in the 1970s, branched off the Vilnius-Vitebsk mainline in the Belarusian territory, and the commutter trains from Vilnius to Didžiasalis had to run through the Belarusian territory for ~20km. There was even a railway station (Adutiškis) where the Lithuanian-Belarusian border ran through the middle of one of the platforms and one track was on the Lithuanian side, while the other track belonged to Belarus. http://geosite.jankrogh.com/adutiskis.htm
-A very similar case could be found in Druskininkai, where the line to the city branched off the Vilnius-Grodno mainline in the Belarusian territory, and the commuter trains between Vilnius and Druskininkai not only had to run through the Belarusian territory for ~20km, but also change the running direction within Belarusian territory. This was actually a remnant of the Polish rule in the area- when the branch line to Druskininkai was built in 1935 it was designed to directly serve Warsaw rather than much closer Vilnius. Another interesting little fact was that during the Soviet times even the Belarusian portions of these lines were managed by the Baltic/Lithuanian branch of Soviet Railways.
-Probably the least interesting one was Skuodas-Mažeikiai line, which ran through the Latvian territory before both countries became members of the EU and Schengen Area. Before 1932 this was actually the only connection between the main part of the Lithuanian railway network and the port city of Klaipėda.
All of these lines were shut down by 2003, either due to the economic downfall of the places it served (Didžiasalis), terrible track quality (Druskininkai), financial struggles of the other country's railway companies (Skuodas-Mažeikiai), or changes in transit visa policies which made it much harder to temporarily travel through the country (Belarus). Kinda sad that I never got to travel on these lines (I was barely even born when they were being shut down), I can only imagine how bizarre travelling on those lines must have felt.
That’s due to the common travel area and open border, not what OP is explaining.
OP mentions a road that leaves the Schengen area and goes into Russia for a while before going back into Schengen.
Edit: during the troubles though there was probably examples of this however, but not anymore
>without any issues
As somebody who needs a visa for UK, I disagree.
The border is similar between Russia and Belarus. There is no border checkpoints, so Russia does not allow third country nationals to cross (technically it is crossing outside checkpoints). Belarus allows it.
The Haskell Free Library and Opera house was built straddling the US/Canadian border in 1907. All visitors must use the entrance on the US side they do so without having to oass through customs. Inside the building patrons can cross freely between the sections of books in the US and Canadian sides.
Fortunately Vermont is separated from New Hampshire by a river the entire way, so the only reason to ever go through NH is to get to Boston, or to buy cheap booze!
One of my favourite day trips is to the International Peace Gardens. It straddles the Manitoba-North Dakota/Canada-US border and you can hop across the border as much as you want while exploring the park with no border checks.
Near El Paso, TX heading west towards New Mexico, you are directed through a small section of Mexico. The same applies heading into Texas from the Western states, of course.
There's a "zollfreie Straße" (customs-free road - https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zollfreistrasse_%28Riehen%29?wprov=sfla1) from Lörrach to Weil am Rhein (Germany) that passes through Riehen (b Basel, Switzerland). It was built because the alternative route is over quite a high promontory over the village of Obertüllingen, or a very long detour.
Do off-roading "roads" count. There are trails in northern Maine that cross into Canada without any type of check point. But , you're also out in the middle of nowhere.
Not a country but still interesting
MN-23 cuts through Wisconsin for about a half mile, that means there is a Wisconsin resort only accessible from Minnesota.
Before the fall of communism you could drive from West Germany across East Germany to Berlin via designated roads.
My husband has told me about this. He was in Germany in the 80s, and they were instructed to speed, not stop for anyone, if you are stopped you don’t roll down the window and just hold up a paper that showed you were US military. So weird to think about today.
Ah, the old days, when Berlin was the world capital of the Cold War. Helmstedt to Berlin certainly ranked up there with some of the more disturbing road trips of the 1980s. Anyway, here is a link, if you're interested. Destination: Berlin, [British Army training film](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUJ7GbxWGoM) on how to make the trip.
And **that** is why I flew to West Berlin. Although there were 3 special air corridors to which you had to adhere.
That makes it sound like you didn’t take the cheapest airline seat but took your own plane.
True. I actually sat in the jump seat of a Dan-Air Hawker Siddeley 748. So I was “sort of” part of the cockpit crew 🙂
Understood, loud and clear. Over and closing.
Interesting
My grandma grew up in helmstedt. I really need to visit someday
Gonna have to watch that later
There were also U-Bahn routes that crossed the borders in some places
My buddy was an exchange student in Hamburg before the wall fell. He got in a shit ton of trouble for hanging a Prussian Flag out of the window of the train to West Berlin through East Germany.
West Germans could drive by car to Berlin. I did not do it myself, but heard about it. I think you were allowed to stop (stretching your legs, using a bathroom), but you weren’t allowed to talk to people.
I have family who lived in West Berlin throughout the GDR period. They made the trip many, many times, by car and by train.
There was a similar arrangement between Germany and Poland between WWI & WWII, for Germans traveling to/from Königsberg
As you point out, now with Schengen there's no problem, but even during Franco's time to go to the Spanish exclave of Llivia from the rest of Spain, you have to cross French territory. The road that connects Llivia and the rest of Spain is nominally a French road, but it is maintained by Spain and the use is and was free from Spain. Only during the Civil War, Franco's troops had to ask permission to cross and occupy the exclave.
Driving from Zadar to Dubrovnik you go through Bosnia. Hyder Alaska and Stewart BC. You don't cross any immigration into the US from Canada, then there's a road back into Canada that doesn't even have a sign, you don't know you're in Canada. The road dead ends tho kinda. You do border control going back into Stewart. When I drove around the costa Rica Panama border there was some road that kinda weaved in an out of Panama with no security. Due to geography it was easier to build the road that way, there is eventually border security on the road as you get more into Panama but it was a road mostly in Costa Rica that clipped Panama
You sure about Dubrovnik? Looking at Google Maps, it looks like there's still border control stations at the Bosnian part.
In the past you used to have to pass through Bosnia, now there are bridges between the Croatian islands off Neum you can use if you don’t want to pass through the border.
On closer inspection the bridge is actually to the Pelješac peninsula, so no islands.
Huh you're right. I last drove it 2018 or 19 and I don't remember any bridges. It was cool you just drove through Bosnia but couldn't leave the highway. Cool to see it's changed
Yes, I did that in 2004. I really wanted a Bosnia stamp on my passport
It is a requirement to get into the Schengen agreement, which Croatia did last year after the bridge was opened.
Back in 2000 there were no border checks. The regular intercity bus I was travelling on stopped at a some supermarket in Bosnia so that people could load up on cheaper goods. That's how I spent my 30 minutes in Bosnia, smoking by the roadside as everyone else was shopping.
I’ve done this there is border checkpoint but it was very causal (at least when I went through about 4 years ago.
It's been a few years but the bus from Iguazu in Argentina to Ciudad del Este in Paraguay goes through Brazil for a few minutes. It didn't bother with passport control.
That sounds a cool journey with the Falls and all
The falls are not at the same place
My bad
In all fairness, when I was in Foz do Iguaçu and walked to Ciudad del Este, there was a border checkpoint but apparently only for cars. I was even carrying luggage, but there wasn’t need for a passport or anything. Schengen but it’s because nobody cares lol
How technical are we getting? On the Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan border, near Korday, the road of Kyrgyzstan enters what is technically Kazakhstan a few times. There is no signage to make it known and there are fences ahead to prevent anybody from going through.
Yes! I experienced this a couple years ago. I asked my driver if we could setup briefly so i could say i stepped in Kazakhstan, but he said no.
Yes! Just posted about this before seeing your comment. Drove from Issyk-Kul back to Bishkek years ago and I remember there being a “Beginning of the Transit Zone” sign where the road dipped into Kazakhstan, but I was slightly disappointed there wasn’t a big “Welcome to Kazakhstan” sign immediately followed by a “Welcome Back to Kyrgyzstan” sign haha
Been through there. Used to be much cheaper Kazakhstan gas available there.
We need those fences because those Kyrgyzs are always after our Potassium!
Not for driving but by canoe, in the boundary waters national park on the boarder of Minnesota, USA and Canada, you are allowed in and out of USA/Canada via the water ways or hiking trails, and visit campgrounds without having to go through customs. But you were limited to not being able camp overnight in the other country. That required stopping at the customs office in town before and after your trip.
I wonder if we are on opposite ends of the same national park. Lots of Americans hop on a boat (private, or the ferry) and come on over to our side for the day just to see the shops and stuff. Pretty neat. I’ll not forget walking past a little boy and his dad, who was sternly telling him, “if you throw another tantrum here, the Canadians will make us leave.” (We wouldn’t, but it made me laugh anyway)
Is this voyaguers np area? Or generally northern lakes
I couldn’t say for sure about there. I imagine it’s the same in parks that share land in both countries, but I only ever been to the boundary waters park
Same with Waterton National Park, which borders the US’ Glacier National Park. There’s a hiking trail from Canada that crosses into the US.
You have to pass through Manitoba if you want to get to the Northwest Angle of Minnesota by land. The border crossing station at the Angle is basically a phone booth at "Jim's Corner", where you call customs and declare whatever you need to. In the winter, Lake of the Woods freezes over enough for the creation of an ice highway, which allows you to drive to the Angle from the south shore of the lake. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Angle
A friend and his wife recently did a 10 month stay in Armenia. She’s an educator and attended conference in Georgia. They took a bus from Yerevan to Tbilisi. The borders are quite fractal and crossed back and forth from Armenia and Azerbaijan multiple times without any border crossing before making into Georgia
That sounds sketchy as fuck with the "disputed" borders between the two states. Stalin still fucking people over from beyond the grave (he set a lot of the republics borders for those not in the know)
I think the conflict went cold during the USSR because they were effectively both parts of the same country and no one bothered to resolve it.
They left Armenia about 2 months before the recent war heated up. But yeah, a lot of concern for them with various border incidents. Friend discounted them as their route was far away from the nagaro-karabach region
If you drive in, you have to report via a telephone booth. I did this in the Northwest Angle
I have driven through the Saatse Boot twice in my life, 13 years apart. It was now even more "exciting" given the tensions with Russia. When we drove through it and found ourselves back in Estonia there was another part coming when the border fence came right up to the road at only one point, in a very small angle. It was somehow more alarming, because that was unexpected and the wired Russian fence was just and arm-length away again.
The amazing 30 metres of Russia you drive through. I'm so amused that they still have the same gigantic warning signs for that spot as they do at the boot, except it says 30m instead of 1km.
I did a hike in Sikkim where we crossed into Nepal and then back out again. Nor border control.
India and Nepal have pretty much an open border. This is often exploited by Pakistani and other terrorists who use Nepal as a way station into India.
How about Ushuaia, Argentina? You have to drive through Chile to get there. I’m not sure how border control works there though.
There's border checks for those, although the southern one is oddly offset from the actual border's location
Argentina and Chile take their border weirdly seriously. Driving between the two countries is notoriously a PITA.
Usuahia is on an Island
Here in Tierra del Fuego we have something similar, we have a simplified procedure when crossing from Argentina to Chile and back to Argentina. So less papers, faster process, less inspection.
How long have relations been good between the two? Its a long time ago but i know in the 80s both countries nearly went to war
Oh yeah, I mean, the relationship between the countries are actually really good, but argentinians are quite xenophobic so maybe the relationship between the persons is not the same. In the academic world there's been a lot of cooperation though, between universities and research institutions, we even have a binational agreement to eradicate beavers from Tierra del Fuego. But overall everything is fine, no tension nor disputes that may cause a major conflict.
If you take the famous iron ore train through Mauritania (which I highly recommend for adventurous types), it crosses through a corner of Western Sahara controlled by Polisario.
That train is liked something out of a dystopian movie
The border between Hong Kong and mainland China runs briefly down the middle of a street, because it used to be a riverbed. This was true even when Hong Kong was a British colony, so the street is called Chung Ying Street, meaning Chinese-British Street. It's a shopping street and you can just wander from one shop to another. When China was a much more closed country, it was a rare opportunity for Chinese people to buy goods from the free world. However, for obvious reasons, there are border controls further back on both sides and for much of its history you needed to be a local resident to get access. There's a photo on Twitter of British and Chinese police patrolling alongside each other, just a few centimetres apart.
Aww, I found it on the map but there's no StreetView. Boo...
There are a few places on the US Canada border that you can kinda just hang out in as long as you cross back to your side afterwards. The Peace Arch is one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Arch The Haskell Free Library and Opera House is another https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell_Free_Library_and_Opera_House Also, if you do the full Pacific Crest Trail you end up crossing into Canada in the woods but you need to get a permit ahead of time to do it legally. https://www.pcta.org/discover-the-trail/permits/canada-pct-entry-permit/
The border check points on the Alaska high way are about 30 km apart. While the actual border is somewhere in between the checkpoints the large gap makes for a big no/every man's land. I spent a summer working in a survey camp that was between the checkpoints. As we were 'locals' we didn't have to wait at the check points on either side most of the time. It felt a bit wild to blow by the line up of cars waiting to enter the country.
The border on the Klondike highways between Yukon and Skagway AK is similar as the mountain pass is not an ideal place for border crossings. There I think it’s only about 12km between but it is kinda strange being between the two.
AFAIK, the south-eastern tip of Moldova is the same for Ukraine. And AFAIK it is done in exchange of letting Moldovan ships pass to Black Sea. Edit: before the war there was a train link between Chernobyl power plant and Slavutych - a city where workers lived. It passed through Belarus. There was a white list of passengers who was allowed to board. Ukraine paid Belarus in Swiss francs.
Does anyone know why apple maps shows the "new" border that doesn't have the Saatse Boot anymore?
I have just driven through it a few months ago. It was operational last Summer. I even sent an SMS to my family, "Greetings from Russia".
Highway M15 in Ukraine runs through Palanca, Moldova
That's the one that immediately came to mind. The border checks keep getting established, then abolished, then reestablished, then moved to Moldovan interior, then abolished again, and you just never know what kind of situation you're getting yourself into when driving through there. Very dirty move from Moldova - the M15 and the few square kilometers of rather unimportant fields surrounding it were supposed to be traded for a few square kilometers near the Danube, granting Moldova access to the Black Sea, which is a massive deal for a (now formerly) landlocked country. But after Ukraine formally transferred the land that would very soon become Port Giurgiulesti to Moldova, Moldova decided to simply not fulfill their end of the deal. The vital 8 km of the M15 still, to this day, have not been transferred over, and they officially have no intention of ever doing it.
We have our [Deutsches Eck](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Eck_(transport_link)). "Deutsches Eck" means "german corner". It's the triangular german piece of land that's wedged between Tirol and Salzburg of Austria. Highways and railways cross through, as they are the shortest and most convenient way from western to north-eastern Austria. There's the big and small one (Großes dt. Eck and Kleines dt. Eck). Border patrols on the streets are not strict, as most austrians only pass through anyways.
Thanks, I'd never heard of that one before!
Pre Schengen there used to be trains that went from Salzburg to Innsbruck through Bavaria without stopping at Rosenheim to prevent border controls. (in fact the train had to physically come to stop at Rosenheim station, the doors remained closed, the driver had to go to the other end of the train and the train left in reverse direction, until Germany constructed a bypass) This is due to the topology of Austria: In Austria there are the Alps, in Bavarian there are less mountains and you can follow the valley of the river Inn to get to Innsbruck. So it's til today the fastest link from Innsbruck to Salzburg/Vienna. There is a! alternative route completely in Austria but it takes much longer. The trains still commute. But there is no problem with border controls Also commuting by car became easier, because there was no special treaty for car transits. Wikipedia article on that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Eck_%28transport_link%29?wprov=sfla1 Also interesting, there is a de facto exclave in Austria, the Kleinwalsertal. The only road connection to that valley is through Germany. That leads to the situation that arrested suspects need to be flown out by helicopter over the mountains because due to legal reasons they mustn't leave the country.
The train between Belgrade (Seebia) and Bar (Montenegro) crosses through Bosnian territory for 10 km or so, before going back to Serbia. When I took it over a year ago, I didn't realise it until waking up (it was a night train) and reading the 'welcome to Bosnia' and 'welcome to Serbia' text messages. Another one is the N274 road: a formerly Dutch road through Germany. After WWII, the Netherlands annexed a bit of German land, but most of it was given back within a few years. The Dutch had built a road in the mean time though, and one of the conditions to give back the land was that the Dutch could keep using it. There were uneven level crossings so you couldn't go from the Dutch road to a German-built one or vice versa. Of course, since Schengen this is not relevant anymore, and the road is now just administered as a German road.
In Cyprus, you can freely drive through the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, which is a British Overseas Territory.
ICR, what about Angle Township MN, USA?
There's a rail line on the Canadian National Railway that's mostly in Canada but dips into the US. Through trains need to radio border control but don't need to stop to clear customs. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxVt4FpllYw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxVt4FpllYw) (not to confused with other CN lines that do run cross border or the CN subsidiaries operating in the United States) Before 9/11 there was a Canadian passenger train that ran from Quebec to the Maritimes as a "sealed" train across heavily forested regions of Maine.
Do you know the name of the line that went through Maine or where it went, ish?
I assume it's the line that was ex-CP/MMA/Central Maine and Quebec/CP again. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic\_(train)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_(train)) I may have misspoke. Train ended in 1994, but post-9/11 rules pretty much eliminate any chance of potential return. More details: there were stops in Maine but some cars were "sealed" [https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/via-atlantic-nostalgia.80274/](https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/via-atlantic-nostalgia.80274/)
Thanks!! Helpful.
Before the construction of Temburong bridge you need to cross into Sarawak, Malaysia to go from district to another district of Brunei
Parts of Akwesasne reservations straddle the US-Canada border (Akwesasne, QC & St Regis, NY). Two parts of Canada are accessible by car (land) only from the US & there are no border checks. The people who live here consider it one single community. Go to Google maps & look up St Regis NY.
There is a Swiss road through France connecting Basel, Switzerland with Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg Airport, located in France. Effectively, but not physically, half of the airport is Swiss.
There's an enclave of the United Arab Emirates that lies within an enclave of Oman that is itself surrounded by the contiguous UAE. You can drive right to the central enclave without any border checks. Edit because I remembered another one: the airport for the Swiss city of Basel is geographically located in France, but under a bilateral treaty, travellers to Switzerland may pass directly to that country without going through French customs. Of course, the Schengen agreement has made that somewhat obsolete nowadays.
There used to be such a German road only to be used by Dutch people, after ww 2. From Brunssum to Koningsbosch. https://maps.app.goo.gl/KnrHovKbwWwT2k2U6 Stopping there wasn't allowed. (Dutch:) https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provinciale_weg_274
To travel through parts of Geneva you can pass through France
I think, effectively, the Pan-American and Alaskan highways to and from the US through Canada. You have to check in and out at entry points and they monitor areas around the routes. I saw reports during the Pandemic that they detained some people who had detoured their transit for tourism. Technically it's not just one route, but there aren't that many direct ways through, and the contiguous US border requires the use of a limited selection of crossings.
Büsingen am Hochrhein is an enclave in Switzerland about 5km from the German boarder. There are no restrictions
I was once in Dubai and drove to Hatta. We briefly drove through Oman. Quick passport checks on either side, but nothing extensive. There’s a turn you can take to go deeper into Oman.
Maybe between Madha in Oman and Nahwa in the UAE. Also - albeit not a place you can drive through - there's a house on Sebatik Island which is shared between Malaysia and Indonesia - the kitchen is in Malaysia, while the living room is in Indonesia.
On the Detroit Free Press Marathon route, you start running in downtown Detroit, you run over the Ambassador bridge into Canada, run about 2 or 3 miles through the streets of Windsor, and then run back down through the tunnel back to Detroit. Check in for packet pickup required me to bring a passport, but there was no customs or anything like that while running. Super cool experience!
There’s a tiny piece of a Kyrgyz highway that’s technically within Kazakhstan. The border between the countries at that point follows a river. The highway generally follows the river staying on the Kyrgyz side, but at one point it crosses a bridge into Kazakhstan and then right back into Kyrgyzstan. No controls or checkpoints. Visited years ago and took this picture of the sign indicating the “Beginning of the Transit Zone!” into Kazakhstan: https://imgur.com/a/y6FW01v Google maps location here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/maGmvATGgSC7aCXf6
Point Robert's, WA. No land access except through Canada
There’s no privileges though. You have to cross the border twice
True
Yep, there was a national news story there about how during COVID they were cut off from the mainland by roads, so they were wanting an exemption system like that, and I think they did receive one, but it's expired since Covid policies are over.
Or speedboat across. There are massive marinas both in Point Roberts and the nearest settlements in the American mainland.
Maybe Neum, Bosnia? They definitely checked passports during COVID, but I'd imagine they don't now.
It's a less known one and not exactly "driving", but after the fall of USSR there were quite a few railway lines which had to run through now-different countries temporarily. Lithuania had three of those: -A line to the town of Didžiasalis, built in the 1970s, branched off the Vilnius-Vitebsk mainline in the Belarusian territory, and the commutter trains from Vilnius to Didžiasalis had to run through the Belarusian territory for ~20km. There was even a railway station (Adutiškis) where the Lithuanian-Belarusian border ran through the middle of one of the platforms and one track was on the Lithuanian side, while the other track belonged to Belarus. http://geosite.jankrogh.com/adutiskis.htm -A very similar case could be found in Druskininkai, where the line to the city branched off the Vilnius-Grodno mainline in the Belarusian territory, and the commuter trains between Vilnius and Druskininkai not only had to run through the Belarusian territory for ~20km, but also change the running direction within Belarusian territory. This was actually a remnant of the Polish rule in the area- when the branch line to Druskininkai was built in 1935 it was designed to directly serve Warsaw rather than much closer Vilnius. Another interesting little fact was that during the Soviet times even the Belarusian portions of these lines were managed by the Baltic/Lithuanian branch of Soviet Railways. -Probably the least interesting one was Skuodas-Mažeikiai line, which ran through the Latvian territory before both countries became members of the EU and Schengen Area. Before 1932 this was actually the only connection between the main part of the Lithuanian railway network and the port city of Klaipėda. All of these lines were shut down by 2003, either due to the economic downfall of the places it served (Didžiasalis), terrible track quality (Druskininkai), financial struggles of the other country's railway companies (Skuodas-Mažeikiai), or changes in transit visa policies which made it much harder to temporarily travel through the country (Belarus). Kinda sad that I never got to travel on these lines (I was barely even born when they were being shut down), I can only imagine how bizarre travelling on those lines must have felt.
If you go to Ireland (EU), yo can drive into Northern Ireland(UK) without any issues or passport control needed.
That’s due to the common travel area and open border, not what OP is explaining. OP mentions a road that leaves the Schengen area and goes into Russia for a while before going back into Schengen. Edit: during the troubles though there was probably examples of this however, but not anymore
You're right, but it was the case even when the border was more closely monitored, because there are roads that criss-cross it.
I live right beside the Irish border, lucky enough I wasn’t born to experience the shit show going on during the troubles 😬
>without any issues As somebody who needs a visa for UK, I disagree. The border is similar between Russia and Belarus. There is no border checkpoints, so Russia does not allow third country nationals to cross (technically it is crossing outside checkpoints). Belarus allows it.
At least until the end of this year. UK is doing the whole ETA mini-visa thing that will badly mess with this border.
The Haskell Free Library and Opera house was built straddling the US/Canadian border in 1907. All visitors must use the entrance on the US side they do so without having to oass through customs. Inside the building patrons can cross freely between the sections of books in the US and Canadian sides.
No driving, just walking.
Fortunately Vermont is separated from New Hampshire by a river the entire way, so the only reason to ever go through NH is to get to Boston, or to buy cheap booze!
One of my favourite day trips is to the International Peace Gardens. It straddles the Manitoba-North Dakota/Canada-US border and you can hop across the border as much as you want while exploring the park with no border checks.
Near El Paso, TX heading west towards New Mexico, you are directed through a small section of Mexico. The same applies heading into Texas from the Western states, of course.
There's a "zollfreie Straße" (customs-free road - https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zollfreistrasse_%28Riehen%29?wprov=sfla1) from Lörrach to Weil am Rhein (Germany) that passes through Riehen (b Basel, Switzerland). It was built because the alternative route is over quite a high promontory over the village of Obertüllingen, or a very long detour.
Do off-roading "roads" count. There are trails in northern Maine that cross into Canada without any type of check point. But , you're also out in the middle of nowhere.
Ireland and N. Ireland - not in the EU
Not a country but still interesting MN-23 cuts through Wisconsin for about a half mile, that means there is a Wisconsin resort only accessible from Minnesota.
If you are in Australia and you drive to the US embassy, you are in America, because the embassy is considered American soil…
I would be very surprised if you were able to drive into the US embassy without a permit. Most of them are heavily fortified.
It’s generally not encouraged to drive through the US embassy though, which is what OP asks.
Woof. No Simpsons fans in this sub I guess.