In the UK we have public footpaths and bridleways across private land, which are both useful and pleasant for recreation. Very big with ramblers, dog walkers, horse riders, cyclists and so on. Land owners are required to keep them unobstructed and signposted. There are sometimes disagreements, like this. These generally predate cars and paved roads.
Does America also have these?
The “general” concept is found here;
Every public street is a public right-of-way. The landowners generally own the land from the center of the street to the back edge of their lot. But there’s a public right-of-way to travel on the street, from the center-line to some distance out, enough to cover the street, the tree lawn and the side walk.
Who maintains the right-of-way depends on the local government. Almost always the government maintains the public street. They may also maintain the trees and sidewalks, but not all do. The landowner can be liable if someone injures themselves on the property, even if they were simply using the public right-of-way.
It’s also common to have easements for utilities, like electric power, telephone, cable, etc, to access their poles as they go over property. But that’s not public.
There are also private streets, where you need the permission of the owner(s) to traverse. This is common in some shopping malls, where the owner gives permission by default, and only revokes it if you become anti-social. You’ll also find private streets in gated communities, where you’ll need an explicate invitation from an owner to be allowed in.
In addition to what Pleonast posted, as railroads have gone on the decline in recent decades there has been a trend to convert the old abandoned rail lines into public walking and bicycle paths. The common phrase used for these is “rails to trails” and if you google that phrase you can see examples of it from all over the U.S.
There are also public paths for hiking through the woods, biking, and horse riding. These are usually separate things and not just one path that serves all three purposes.
I found out recently that homeowners in my small city are responsible for their sewer line all the way to the center of the street, due to the point Pleonast brought up.
Which also means, homeowners are able to temporarily dig up public streets for the purpose of fixing the utility lines they are responsible for. I found this out because my neighbor had a burst sewer line that was underneath the street, far past the edge of the side walk.
Surprised me; I’d always just assumed the city was responsible for anything under the street.
With regards to the tradition of public footpaths, most jurisdictions do not recognize them in the US. Some places do, however, for instance, Vermont, I believe. In others, the right to ramble has to be either explicitly given, either willingly or through eminent domain.
But there still manage to be quite a few long distance footpaths that transverse private property for some of their distance. For instance, the Appalachian Trail used to be one, but now most of it is over public land. A good deal of the Finger Lakes Trail is over private land as well.
However, one problem is that the owners most of the time have a right to revoke the public use of the footpath which means that the planners of the footpath need to find an alternate route which often means routing over a road!
As for general access to private property: A big fat NO.
In some places it’s a great way to get shot. Even if not, you can be arrested for trespassing and/or for damaging their property. The later especially if you ‘move’ fences, leave gates open, trample crops, etc.
That’s happening constantly here. A majority of the homes in town are 80-100 years old. Which is about the lifespan of that old cast iron sewer pipe. So every time a house sells now, the new owners, almost as a matter of course, are forced to replace the sewer pipe. Just one of those things on your move-in checklist…
In Oregon, we also have public access to waterfronts. Which means there are no privately owned beaches here–anyone can always walk/lay out/make a campfire in front of your beachfront property.
There are also established footpaths that acquire public right-of-way through periods of uncontested usage. That’s probably most like the paths in the OP. But they aren’t nearly as common here and people often assume that hiking trails are free for public use. Most are either on public land or they are there with the expressed permission of the landowners.
I worked with the Appalachian Trail in the 80’s as sections of trail were moved off private land, or permanent easements were purchased, or in very rare cases land was claimed by eminent domain to establish a permanent corridor for the trail. Most passage over private land in the US is explicitly granted by the landowners and can be revoked at will.
In Michigan, (as of MI SC decision in 2005) you can walk on beaches between the “high water line” and the water. Unfortunately, “high water line” isn’t well-defined. The term was originally applied to sea coasts, where it means the high tide mark. The Great Lakes have no appreciable tides, but instead vary over the course of years (a vertical span of 5 feet), leaving the definition unusually vague.
The ability to walk along the shore varies considerably from state to state, but according to this Lexis-nexis comment abstract,
In practice, I can’t think of any beaches in the US where we can’t walk along the beach without being accosted by property owners (though there have been a couple cases in my 50+ years walking Lake Huron shores where some property owners have tried.)
Here is a PPT that shows a dispute over access to the beach at a particular location in NC and shows the complexity of the legal issues involved. It also has some nice pics of NJ coastal areas.
I’m pretty sure beaches in SC are all public-access. The property owner either doesn’t own the actual beach, or there is a permanent public-access-right written into the ownership paperwork.
Other places owned by the government (parks, some lakefronts, forestland) are *usually *open to the public, but lots of times you have to sign in at a central kiosk, or pay a small upkeep fee to wander there. Others are limited to a certain type of use (fishing, hunting, horseback riding), or to a certain time of year that minimizes environmental damage.
Other than that, no - private property is just that - private. In absence of “No Trespassing” signs, here you wouldn’t immediately get into trouble if you were walking across someone’s property, but in most places it would be considered quite rude, and you’d most likely be asked to leave, and after that request, it IS trespassing.
Easements are intended for utility work or necessary access to other properties, not for pleasure visits.
Here’s one in my state. I’ve never been on it, but I would like to go sometime. Probably won’t do the whole thing though. 
In Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Virginia private property runs down to the mean low tide line so essentially all the beach could be privately owned and most beaches in Maine, Massachusetts, and Virginia are indeed privately owned. It is more common that the mean high tide line is the demarcation between public and private land. In Oregon beaches are public up to the higher line of vegetation.
In some places not only are the beaches public, but landowners are limited on how they can restrict access to the beach. They don’t have to let you walk all over their property, but they may need to provide a path for you to do so.
And sometimes there are disputes over that, as whether the railroad owned the property outright or only had an easement for the trains (and not for walkers or bicyclists) isn’t always clear. A couple of trails in my county were blockaded by neighboring landowners until courts could clear things up.
If part of your property is taken for a public road, compensation is necessary. Fifth Amendment:
As others noted, public access to beaches is mandatory. Property owners adjoining a beach must provide a means of ingress and egress. The adjoining owner has title to the mean tide line in SC.
Pleonast:
Depends upon the state. That was the common law but many states have changed that by statute. That was the law in Illinois until around 1830 when the Plat Act was enacted, giving title to those public ways that are shown on a plat as a public way to the municipality, if and only if the plat of dedication conforms to the Plat Act. This gave rise to some interesting cases in downtown Chicago. In one case, the Ill Supreme Court held, due to a technicality, the Act was not complied with, and Monroe St. remained the title of the adjoining owners, subject to the rights of the public for ingress and egress. Hence, 1st National Bank of Chicago has underground vaults and overhead skyways without paying rent. The companies having such on all the other downtown streets have to pay rent for their underground vaults and skyways. The Plat Act was a change from the common law and has to be strictly complied with. (Actually, it was more than a technicality. One of the School Commissioners failed to notarize the plat until after the fact. The School Commissioners were given title to section 16 in each township in Illinois by the State,)
California has strong laws protecting the right of the public to access the beach. Most of the beach along the entire length of the state is accessible to the public to use.
Back in Texas, I had a friend whose mother owned a rural property near Denton, in the northern part of the state. She had a small house built on it, and I visited a couple of times. She was completely surrounded by land belonging to one other party, and that party wanted her land too. IIRC, she actually had to get a court order for the other party to allow her access to her land, as he had tried to block her from crossing his land.
That’s very dependent on where you live. Here in Texas in most recent suburbs, the property line ends about 1-2 feet in from the curb. (have done quite a few final surveys of homes/lots).
There’s usually a utility easement that runs about 5-6 feet across the front of the lot for things like drainage pipe, water pipe, etc… There’s also usually a back fence line easement for sanitary sewer and things like cable TV, telephones, etc… Sometimes there are side easements as well.
Beaches in many states are public land as well- definitely in Texas. This can be the source of some legal wrestling after hurricanes and the like, when the “beach” changes.
Siam Sam, according to my wife, that should be a slam dunk court order; by law, if a parcel of land has no road access, the surrounding landowner has to give them access… but can charge a reasonable fee or something like that.