Surface Travel to Beijing

2009 06 - pre-departure

Initially I was thinking of the trans-Siberian but got distracted by the new 'Nomadistan' route offered by Vodkatrain

http://www.vodkatrain.com/journeys/trip.aspx?trip=JE

which took in some of the Northern branch of the ancient Silk Route - passing through Russia, Kazakhstan & Uzbekistan. This small group travel, supported rather than guided, seemed a good idea... until not enough people signed up! The maximum group size is 15 and the Nomadistan left once a month (some trans-Siberian options leave twice a week in peak season) & July was the only good departure time for me, so I signed up early.... But as the weeks passed and I didn't get any support documentation to facilitate visa application I discovered the minimum group size was 4 and I was the only one booked on for July! (apparently the min size was listed somewhere in the small print and I'd missed it). To cut a longer story shorter, I had to wait some more, then the July departure was cancelled and I considered my options before creating an almost identical solo travel itinerary through Sundowners Overland (Asian overland specialists and parent company of Vodkatrain) and as a solo itinerary it was a guaranteed departure! :)

I also managed to get myself a place on the Norwegian sail-training ship Sørlandet for the first leg of the Tall Ships Races, Baltic 2009, Sailing from Gdynia (Northern Poland) to St Petersburg and then to Tallinn. http://www.schoolship.no/

Feeling the Connection

2009 06 - pre-departure

Over the last few years, initially on my Dundee-Bristol journeys, I've really grown to appreciate travelling overland rather than flying.
I really feel like it gives you some sense of how the departure and arrival locations are connected. You absorb some of the flavour of the environment and people's interaction with it, even if that is only by looking out of a window of your transport. You also get a tangible sense of the distance covered.
When you fly you have very little sense of connection. You might as have teleported.
You are one place, then you are somewhere else.
Overland you travel through the intervening space and I think that's valuable and I like it.

At some point I realised I would have enough money to travel overland (thank you Granny & Grandad for your part in helping me reach that point) and so that is my ambition for the whole trip:
to avoid flying as a means of transport where possible.