Young sons of U.S. marshal ride horseback from Oklahoma to New York (2018)

I've done very long distance pack-horsing in wild places and these are indeed the big problems. There's this thing like the tyranny of the rocket equations.. a horse can't carry what it needs to drink, so you almost have to follow rivers or know exactly where they are and when you'll hit them. I came from long-distance cycling too where I would think nothing much of 100 miles on a good day even on trails, carrying food and water no problem. Not going to happen with horses on long solo trips without logistical support.. you can push limits for days without consequence but not for weeks

https://www.vermontpublic.org/show/made-here/2024-09-05/pony...

https://www.google.com/maps/place//@-31.9637446,152.4642729,...

If you zoom out on that link you'll see the entire area is cross-crossed by horse trails, they form a network for many hundreds of miles in every direction and everyone i knew growing up had a horse (they aren't that expensive if you have a paddock to feed them and with so many horses in the area the farrier/vets are relatively competitive).

Once a year during school holidays there was a horse jamboree (NSW pony club jamboree, still happening to this day) where you'd all make your way to one of the regions pony clubs with camping equipment (a different pony club hosted each year) for competition. They'd have routes planned out, camp sites assigned and stalls strung up with electric fence wire to keep your horse in. Some years we'd float (Australian term for using a horse trailer to get there) but other years could be a 100 mile multi-day ride.