But you will need a national photo ID, though. On the other hand nobody will ask you to show it anyway (not really true, I have been asked to show my ID or passport when getting on board the ferry between Riga and Stockholm).
Arbua is in the Shengen area, so theoretically you could go from there to Vardo in extreme northeast Sweden, a distance of 9,115 kilometers.
That’s pretty good. Still doesn’t beat the Virgin Islands to Aleutian Islands route, though.
I have no idea where Arbua is, but Vardø is in Norway.
How about San Jose, California to San Francisco, California except you go South from San Jose?
Er… right, oops. Aruba is in the Dutch Antilles just north of Venezuela.
Point of order: Does the trip itself have to follow a great circle, or is that just for measuring the distance traveled? Because for many of these trips, the great circle route would cross over some other country.
Aha, I you hadn’t misspelled it I would have recognised it.
It’s my fact checker and editor’s day off.
How about France to its overseas territory New Caledonia (10,026 miles / 16,136 kilometres) ?
The distance to Wallis and Futuna is a little farther.
16,405 kilometers or 10,193 miles.
Either of those is farther than the distance from the UK to Pitcairn.
I was looking at that and have seen conflicting information about whether a French citizen would need a passport to travel there (or Tahiti).
Of course, if that does work, don’t forget to milk the Shengen too. It looks like if you flew from New Caledonia to Paris and then hopped the train to Lisbon that would be 11,190 miles / 18,000 km.
Ooh, or even better, New Caledonia to the Canary Islands (no passport needed for EU citizens): 11963 miles / 19253 km !
The OP said without official documentation. Unless you are a very good swimmer, you are not going to go to Hawaii without official documentation. I guess from northern Maine to San Diego by bus is possible without documentation. In Canada you could go by train from Halifax to Vancouver without documentation, but that must be less than Maine to San Diego.
The French overseas territories are not in the Schengen area.
Cite.
Not sure how that affects French citizens though.
Given that the circumference of the Earth at the Equator is 40,075 km/24,901 mi, the upper limit is going to be 20,037 km/12,450 mi, so New Calendonia (or Wallis and Futuna) to the Canaries is close to what’s theoretically possible.
My WAG would be from the Canada/US border Canadian side, over the frozen Arctic Sea into Russia (well somewhere in the former Soviet Union) border. Extending that a bit since you would be able to cross into Russia at a place where there is no checkpoint, you could extend it to the southern Russian border. Extending it a bit further you may be able to cross from the US to Canada without a passport (only required for the return?), so the answer may be from the southern US border, into Canada, onto the Arctic Iceshelf crossing undocumented into the former Soviet Union till their southern border.
Closer than you think:
Halifax to Vancouver: 2,756 miles.
Houlton, Maine, to San Diego: 2,744 miles.
You can certainly travel further in Canada than is possible in the contiguous United States. For example, St John’s NL to Whitehorse YT is 3,220 miles in a great circle. That would involve a ferry crossing but I don’t know if that would require ID? If so then, say, Mary’s Harbour NL to Whitehorse would be almost 2,900 miles with no ferries.
How about flying around the world nonstop, and landing back where you started. It has been done twice:
Voyager
Global Flyer
If you’re assuming that you’re crossing borders undocumented, though, you could go anywhere at all in the world. Russia does not allow paperless crossings from Canada.
Passengers on private aircraft starting in the US and ending in the US are not required to show ID.