Sanity check for long term travel
 

Hello everyone!

I just wanted to sanity check something before I start selling off everything in preparation for my trip. I want to make sure my assumptions are correct after lots and lots of reading and possibly picking up some out dated info somewhere.

I'm planning a trip from Melbourne to London via South East Asia, Southern and Central Asia over a period of 18 months to 2 years. I've budgeted for this long but I'm assuming once I get out there I may want to go faster or slower in different areas. Because of this I've held off trying to acquire visas or anything that requires payment before departing in case I'm not comfortable with the pace, or if some local situations arise which prevent me from passing through.

If I'm 3 months out from leaving Melbourne (5 months from leaving Australia), is this a dumb position to be in?

Any documentation with time limits (carnet/IDP) will be requested with about 6 weeks to go (or posted to a friend that can get it to me on the way). I know I have to contact a Chinese guide a good 6 months in advance and also have exact dates to enter Russia, but once I get an idea of my pace I'll organise these from the road. Shipping for the bike can be done with little notice so there should be no problems there.

I have the HUGE advantage of being a dual national (Australia/UK). My assumption here is that I can still cross borders on one while the other is off getting its visas from home. Or travelling on the one that offers visa-free travel in particular areas. I've only just got the UK passport after a long period of procrastinating so this is all new territory for me. Is my thinking correct?

Thanks everyone, this forum has been an amazing source of info for me for the past year. I've spent a fair chunk of my working hours here :biggrin3:

Hello Ryan and :welcome: to the HUBB.

Sounds like a fantastic plan and congrats on making it happen! :thumbup1:

If I follow your post correctly you are planning the following itinerary:

Start riding in 3months
Ride in Oz for 2months
Ship to SEAsia (from Darwin??)
Ride around SEAsia then head to China in approx 6-10months from now?
Cross China into Russia then head towards the UK?

Have I interpreted your plan correctly? :confused1:

I also travel on two passports Swiss/Aussie and although they can be helpful, at most land border crossings you will only use 1 passport. Why well because the country you are departing, customs usually check ongoing visa, ie that you have a valid visa for the country you are going to enter. And conversely the entering country checks the previous visa ie. where you just came from. Where there may be an advantage is if you need to fly or if the visa costs/requirements for one passport are significantly different for the other, but in your case UK vs Aussie I don't see where that might be the case, at least not on your route. :mchappy:

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the info! It sounds like it might best to travel through India on my UK passport so I can send my Australian passport off to get visas for Pakistan and Russia. Assuming they don't check for an Indian visa in the Australian passport when leaving!

I guess my real question when posting is, how flexible can these plans be? I'm assuming it's possible to organise anything on the road with a little help from people in your home country and a lot of money. Just posting to make sure I haven't missed anything glaringly obvious.


The general plan is:
- Depart Melbourne in June
- Head to Darwin via Cairns over 6 weeks (visiting friends and family along the way)
- Ship bike from Darwin to Singapore
- South East Asia for 9 months
- Nepal/India/Pakistan for 3 months
- Quick trip through china into Central Asia
- Central Asia for 3 months
- Russia for 1 month then into Europe

After that, however long the money lasts before I need to find a job as visas aren't a concern any more. But as I said my plans are very flexible to see how I'll go on the run.

I'll post in the Travellers seeking travellers section once I've got some firm dates for countries.

My first big commitment has been met by providing notice to move out of my rental property, it's all go from here!

You are right to have only a general plan, things change as you go, places can be better or worse than expected and mishaps happen, hopefully not bad ones. My first big trip was the opposite way round, UK to Oz, the plan was to take 4 to 5 months to get there, it took 10 and that was not because of problems, I just took my time and stopped where I wanted to for as long as I wanted.
Enjoy the ride.