Hello from Switzerland
 

Hi everybody!

We plan to go eastward. Two people, two Honda CRF250L.
The plan was to leave early spring, which will not happen, but instead beginning of June. The route should go through Iran, the Stans, Mongolia, Karakorum Highway, Pakistan, India, (Myanmar? Probably try to get around by boat or sth.) and further down to south-east Asia. We have roughly one year.

Currently, we try to figure out whether the trip is possible due to the Covid situation around the world, and are quite unsure in this regard. Shifting for a year might be an option - but introduces the great risk of not going at all...

Hi from zurich bier

We also are dreaming about the silkroad. We guess it will not possible to ride through so many countrys, starting with the current showstopper: Iran.

We still think about the transsibiria (blue line), with less border crossings, quarantine, pcr-tests and visa`s, but still there it isnt shure if it will be possible in 1-2 months:

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IA6msFpLR...ng-vanlife.jpg

The Transsibiria & Silkroad
https://vanlife.4x4tripping.com/2021...d-journey.html

Above we did collect too (c)ovid restrictions and information about the borders of the silkroad - linking back to other websites.

Surfy

Thanks for your reply! Your Page and the link to www.wuestenschiff.de was very helpful!
One idea would be to go through Russia during summer, then take a ferry down to South-East-Asia and head back along the silk road starting end of Winter or early Spring. However, currently also Russia's borders are closed for tourists...

Grüezi, Guy, and welcome to the HUBB.

Concerning your plans... unless there is a significant improvement in the COVID situation worldwide between now and the time you plan to depart, I think it would be prudent to defer your trip until next year.

The reason for this is that you are at a very high risk of getting trapped in any of the countries that you plan to pass through if the COVID situation gets out of hand in that country and neighboring countries then impose border controls.

This happened to me in March of 2020 - a year ago last week (first week of March 2020) I was happily riding around Tunisia. Exactly a week ago, Italy and France - the only two countries with ferry service to and from Tunisia - shut their borders to non-nationals. I was then stuck in Tunisia with no way out, either for myself or for me and my motorcycle.

I wound up quarantining at a hotel in Djerba for 3 weeks, then barely made it out of Tunisia back to Canada on the one-and-only repatriation flight that ever took place between Canada and Tunisia. I had to leave my motorcycle behind in Tunisia, it is still there today.

If you have the itch to travel this year, perhaps try a "dress rehearsal" trip to countries bordering CH. You could go all the way down to the bottom of Italy, or through Austria or Slovenia to Hungary, etc.

Doing a trip like that would allow you to work out the details of what to bring, what to leave behind, you would learn what daily costs were and what kind of accommodation you like/dislike, etc. And, most important of all, you would not be at risk of being trapped in a foreign country that is 3 or 4 border crossings away from home.

To sum up, the risk this year is not catching COVID, the risk is getting trapped somewhere because of locally imposed quarantines or travel restrictions.

Michael