Preparation Central Asia/ South Kaukasus
 

Hello everybody!

I'm planning to go for a Central Asia tour including South Kaukasus this summer and would need some help/ recommendations pls.
I am from Austria, 27, and drive a Lc4 640 adventure (2002; 24.000 km). I will start on 1. of July in Austria and have planned to spend about 3,5 months; All in all I think this trip will be around 12-14ts km.
As for now I will be on my own for this trip; but I will also post then in "Travellers seeking travellers" in order to find companions for some ways. When I start at 1. of July I will have a attended a Russian course for 1 year.

My route will lead me:

from
- Austria to Odessa 8 days;
- 3 days ferry from Odessa to Georgia
- 18 days South Kaukasus: Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaidjan
- 1 day ferry from Baku to Turkemistan
- 9 days in Turkmenistan on to Uzbekistan
- 14 days Uzbekistan on to Tadschikistan
- 18 days Tadschikistan
- 10 days Kirgistan
- 20 days back from Kirgistan via Kazachstan, Russia, Ukraine in direction to Austria

My questions:
- What do you think about the aprox. timetabe? Do you think it is enough?
- Could you recommend me where to get tyres/ oil on the way?
- Any recommendations concerning Visas/ other recommendations?

Thanks very much!!
Best regards
Trippler

I just changed the plan as with ferry and Visa I could face heavy problems going from azerbaidjan to turkmenistan. I decided to take the ferry from baku to kazachstan going on to uzbekistan and from there via transitvisa to turkmenistan.

You are traveling a long way from 'home'. Spend your time at the places you will find harder to get to later (those further away). By that I mean skip the South Kaukasus ...may be do Mongolia.

Keep the plan flexible. You'll find places you like - spend some 'extra' time there.

Plan every 7th day off - to do washing, relaxing, banking, paperwork .. it will get used up. This must be a non traveling day, stopped somewhere.

Good luck. Enjoy.

For comparison purposes, here is my schedule for Central Asia, entering and leaving through Ukraine:

25 days Russia
20 days Mongolia
3 days Russia
7 days Kazakhstan
8 days Kyrgyzstan
10 days Uzbekistan
8 days Kazakhstan
4 days Russia

The above segment of the trip will cover about 13,000 miles (almost 21,000km)

Trippler, Do some reading on the ferry between Baku and Kazakhstan.

From all reports it is very unreliable and at times people have waited over a week for the ferry.

You seem to have quite a bit of time so maybe this is ok for you?

Have you thought about going through Iran?

Tom.

Your itinerary sounds feasible.

It's more of a personal issue with regard to how many different places you want to 'see', how many kilometres you wish to add to your odometer, compared to how much quality time you want to spend actually experiencing a place. Whilst I personally need far more time in a place, I think the time you have allocated allows at least a bit of time to absorb your surroundings a little.

While it helps to research as much as possible, to maximise the amount you can see and plan a definite route you wish to follow, you need also to build some slack into your itinerary, to cover things like rest, washing clothes, sorting out paperwork, unexpected stuff.

I would tend to cut the days off at the beginning of your itinerary and go straight to Odesa. You realise that you cannot go from Armenia directly into Azerbaijan, right? Also, if you wanted to spend 9 days in Turkmenistan, you would need to be booked on an organised, guided tour. You could add a few days in Kyrgyzstan to do some trekking. I also really like Kazakhstan and would spend a few more days there perhaps, but the attractions are admittedly quite sparse.

Otherwise, given your time constraint, I think you have a good plan.