You can get your glider license without ever having done an outlanding -- or talking to ATC . In fact the Bronze badge, which most clubs require before turning you loose for your 50 km cross-country is a post license exercise.
That's a bit of a sweeping statement. The requirements for glider licenses are somehow not standardized by ICAO (or nobody follows the ICAO recommendation, I don't know).
In the UK,
AFAIK, the BGA *exclusively* uses the FAI badge system. They never issue you with a formal license.
In the Netherlands, there is a Glider Pilots License (which I have) which indeed can be done within 5 km of the field, and without any radio usage whatsoever. Only once you have the GPL will you start your x-country training.
EASA is going to change all this though (somewhere in 2014 I believe). There is going to be a formal EU-wide accepted Glider Pilots License, and this license will include x-country experience. From memory, the experience requirement is a 50 km solo flight or a 100 km dual flight.
Canada, US, Australia may all be different. I have no idea.