diff --git a/torchgeo/datasets/geo.py b/torchgeo/datasets/geo.py
index fda6f24b859..c40f880e2bf 100644
--- a/torchgeo/datasets/geo.py
+++ b/torchgeo/datasets/geo.py
@@ -438,43 +438,14 @@ def list_files(self, filename_glob: Optional[str] = None) -> list[str]:
         # using set to remove any duplicates if directories are overlapping
         filepaths: set[str] = set()
         for dir_or_file in paths:
-            if os.path.exists(dir_or_file):
-                if os.path.isfile(dir_or_file):
-                    filepaths.add(dir_or_file)
-                else:
-                    pathname = os.path.join(dir_or_file, "**", filename_glob)
-                    filepaths |= set(glob.iglob(pathname, recursive=True))
+            if os.path.isdir(dir_or_file):
+                pathname = os.path.join(dir_or_file, "**", filename_glob)
+                filepaths |= set(glob.iglob(pathname, recursive=True))
             else:
-                filepaths |= self.handle_nonlocal_path(dir_or_file)
+                filepaths.add(dir_or_file)
 
         return list(filepaths)
 
-    def handle_nonlocal_path(self, path: str) -> set[str]:
-        """Override this method if your path can not be interpreted by os module.
-
-        See docs for Advanced Datasets
-            https://rasterio.readthedocs.io/en/stable/topics/datasets.html
-        `fiona.listdir` can be used to list files in such directories:
-            https://fiona.readthedocs.io/en/stable/fiona.html#fiona.io.MemoryFile.listdir
-
-        Args:
-            path: directory, cloud storage blob or archive to be listed
-
-        Returns:
-            set of paths pointing to files
-
-        Raises:
-            RuntimeError: if the path is not found locally,
-                or this method is not overridden by child
-        """
-        raise RuntimeError(
-            f"Dataset not found in `{path}` "
-            "either specify a different `root` directory or make sure you "
-            "have manually downloaded the dataset as instructed in the documentation."
-            "If this is a remote file or archive "
-            "please override this method and return the filepath(s) as a set."
-        )
-
     def __getitem__(self, query: BoundingBox) -> dict[str, Any]:
         """Retrieve image/mask and metadata indexed by query.