Join us for the 4Daagse Walk of the World in Nijmegen, the Netherlands! This annual four-day event goes by many names. The International Four Days Marches Nijmegen. The 100-Mile March. Holland Four Day Event. We call it “the Nijmegen.”  We, the U.S. Delegation Nijmegen March (USDNM), are proud to coordinate the logistics, registration, and communications for U.S. participants, offering a unique experience to showcase American military values, fitness, and traditions. With over 100 years of tradition and generations of multinational participation, the Nijmegen stands out as the largest and most iconic military marching event in the world.

 

Every third Tuesday of July, over 45,000 participants from around the world gather to walk 30, 40, or 50 kilometers per day for four consecutive days. Dutch Soldiers began the march as a military endurance exercise in 1909. Nijmegen became the march’s permanent home in 1925. Over the years, the event gained international attention, with other nations sending military teams. Civilians also joined as the Nijmegen’s repute grew. That Nijmegen was a WWII battlefield allows the event several opportunities to honor U.S. military heritage, along with the United Kingdom, Royal Dutch, Canada, and Germany. Today, the Nijmegen has grown into a symbol of international camaraderie, discipline, and professionalism. Military participants walk in uniform with rucksacks, while civilians from all walks of life take on the challenge to earn the prestigious 4Daagse Cross medal.

 

The event is not a competition, though every military naturally seeks to emphasize their national readiness in the friendly test of shared duress. And the Nijmegen will test marchers, and not simply their physical fitness, but also preparation discipline, endurance tradecraft, and character and willpower. The Nijmegen has a reputation for humiliating the unprepared and tormenting the untrained that it reinforces every year. It’s confronting and overcoming – perhaps mastering? – these challenges in a weeklong walk with thousands of fellow Servicemembers, multinational partners, and people of all ages and nations on a hundred-mile block party that make the Nijmegen worth the pain.