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[MoloMowChow]

So I've been doing some serious questing in this world. The problem is that my quests have been pointing to more remote locations and this world seems to like having deep unpassable rivers going right across the land.

The world map doesn't actually display all the rivers but the region map does. They seem to twist and turn all over the place, forcing me to turn around from dead ends and taking roundabout routes to my destination. This takes its toll as I get ambushed more and more and run out of supplies and food. Is there any way to view these dark blue rivers or perhaps pass through them?

[nenjin]

Exit travel mode and physically climb down into the river and swim across to the other side. Do note that rivers can contain plenty of hostile and very dangerous wildlife.

If the river has cut a super deep canyon...well...that's where the fun really begins.

[MoloMowChow]

Will my followers be able to follow me through the river?

[Spish]

If you manage to get to the other side and sleep before they all drown, then all of the survivors will teleport to your side.

[NW_Kohaku]

It seems followers can gain experience.

I've actually successfully trained my followers to swim in the latest version.  You just need to jump into a stream, wait for them to follow you, then move back to shore, and wait for them to get back up with you (after floundering for a while).  It takes a mind-numbingly long time to teach them, and you might occasionally lose a few, but once you teach them, they'll gradually learn to swim, as well. 

[Lexyvil]

If you manage to get to the other side and sleep before they all drown, then all of the survivors will teleport to your side.

That's a very neat trick there, didn't know it was possible to still have live companions after river crossing...

[Shinziril]

Also, if things are working properly they'll manage to get across the river without floundering and drowning.  I'm not sure exactly what triggers floundering; I suspect it has something to do with wounded status (i.e. if you have no swimmer skill and are wounded in water, you start drowning), but if that's true I swear even old, healed scars trigger it (due to leaving yellow "wounds" behind). 

[NW_Kohaku]

I think they just start foundering if they have no/dabbling swimmer skill and fail a swim check. 

Even without teaching your followers to swim, you can just run straight through the river and try to get far enough away that the followers don't drown by the time that you can fast-travel, and I've never lost a follower that way.

Even without teaching them swimming, they can often cross a 4-tile wide stream if you just make sure that you beeline across the river, and they are constantly following you.  Now that streams have ramps, they typically can survive crossing, although they can still get unlucky. 

Usually, though, they won't drown in the time it takes to get the three dozen or so tiles away from a stream it takes to fast travel again.

[Stoup]

Floundering, in my experience, occurs for one of two reasons: Your skill is not sufficient to swim in water at all, or your skill is insufficient to recover from falling involuntarily into water and being stunned. If your swimming skill is too low, being stunned into water regardless of your ability to otherwise swim will cause you to flounder till you leave the body of water

[Matoro]

If you move into tile where your companion is, your companion teleports into your previous tile.

That's trick I used when taughing companions to swim.

At this moment 60% of swimming lessons have been succesful.

And you should start with least novice swimming skill.

Rivers are awesome exp-grinders. I just swim intä direction of water and kill everything in my path. Death for all carps.

Do anyone knows what happens if you swim all the night? Would there still be bogeymen?

[Eric Blank]

Yeah, bogeymen will still pop up occasionally even when you aren't fast travelling, which includes being in water I would presume. I wouldn't suggest swimming at night anyway, or at least constantly check the temperature to amke sure it doesn't freeze on you.

If you're hoping to get companions to survive river crossings better, you also have the option of quickly editing their races' raws by adding this tag:
[NATURAL_SKILL:   SWIMMING:2] Which will cause them to start out as adequate swimmers and thus free of their floaties.

[rhesusmacabre]

If you want a more detailed map which shows all of the rivers, go into Legends Mode, press d and select "Standard biome+site map". The map can be found in your DF folder.