Shanghai to Europe, starting April/May 2012
 

Hi People!

We are 2 friends from Spain and Switzerland who live in Shanghai and went on our first road trip last year, from Shanghai to Koh Samui in Thailand.

Next year we are going on our 2nd adventure from Shanghai to Europe (place yet to be decided, although South of Spain sounds like most probable target).

Our first plan goes all the way from Shanghai to Kashgar (crossing Xi'an, Lanzhou, and entering Qinghai and the south of Xinjiang.

Later on we will cross the Karakorum pass into Pakistan. Since this pass is closed until beginning of May we will take the chance around mid month. Once in Pakistan the route becomes a little more blurry for us, since it will strongly depend on the political situation of the area and the potential dangers ahead.

Ideally we will go southwards to Islamabad, hopefully visit the Swat valley, then to Quetta and to Iran on the main road (despite the security warnings we have received).

Once in Iran we want to follow the Silk / Hippy road towards Teheran and from there to Turkey, entering Europe through Istambul and then Greece, ex-Yugoslavia, north of Italy, Swiss, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France and then a long way through Spain and Portugal.

The estimated arrival in Spain will be around August/September, depending on our budgets and the conditions on the road. Ideally I would stay a whole year on the road but we don't have so much money (since Europe is gonna be pretty expensive) so a little bit of improvisation is expected after Turkey.

We are interested in meeting people all along the way, specially people living or willing to travel on Pakistan and Iran, and also any fresh news on the area and expert advises are more than welcome.

If you are interested on this and you can read Spanish you can also take a look on my personal blog about our past trip and the upcoming one (Llévame de viaje | Porque el viaje NUNCA termina…) -sorry, no English version yet- and of course feel free to contact me via PM on this forum or direct email (check my profile).

Hope to hear from you soon!

-kali-