Here is an overview of the entire route, travelled anti-clockwise from the point where the red lines meet in Germany.
Red is where the car and I went together.
Blue is where the car went by sea (obviously!)
Green is where I went without the car

64,500 Kilometres (or 40,300 miles)
20,000 GBP once on the road
10,300 litres of diesel (or 2,270 gallons)
9,000 GBP to buy, prepare and equip the car
17 months on the road
14 countries with the car
12 oil changes
4 times police wanted to bust me for speeding or overtaking in Russia/Kazakhstan
3 countries without the car
2 punctures
1 speeding ticket (200 Pakistani Rupees)
0 times the police actually managed to bust me in Russia/Kazakhstan (because we didn’t speak the same language)
This website is very much still being updated – I didn’t do enough with it while I was travelling and, as of Mar 2011, I am now spending every (available) night working on it until it’s finished. It’s getting ridiculous that it’s gone on this long, and I don’t want the memories to fade away. The photos and videos are all there, but I am working on the text to tell the story behind them. Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, India, Burma, Malaysia, Cambodia, Eastern Russia and Kazakhstan, are completed, as is all the stuff relating to getting ready for the trip and Overland Travel Tips. Still in gestation is everything else, although Pakistan is almost done. So if this is your first visit, please keep checking back as it WILL change and (hopefully) improve.
A couple of points:-
- When you go to individual pages, you will see various photos and videos. Click on the play button to see the videos. Each photo you see is actually the cover page of an album. Click on the photo to bring up the entire album. You can either look at each photo individually or you can click on ‘slide show’ and Picasa will run the whole thing for you.
- You will be able to see more detailed maps of individual countries in Google Earth, together with some GPS tracks and waypoints when I get around to loading these up. Stay tuned!
- Equipment, Preparation, Cats and Leaving Do all relate to what happened before I left the UK. I had a bit of difficulty dividing Equipment and Preparation. In the end, I included work done to the car in preparation whilst the equipment section means everything carried on or in the car.


Respect!
I did drive a part of your yourney (Holland-Nepal) on a motorbike and memorys are coming back on your website.
I will bookmark your site and get back in a couple of weeks.
Congratiolations on a beautiful yourney.
With kind regards,
Joop from holland.
http://www.GoingEast.nl
Comment by Jopos — 17/02/2009 @ 8:35 AM |
Hi there have a good time and power!!!
Comment by Clao — 22/06/2009 @ 9:39 PM |
Website much improvedform my last visit
Comment by Jeff — 11/01/2010 @ 11:16 PM |
oh mark – thats great – as a sailor i have circum navigated the world often in 35 years but your routeing on land with the cruiser is stupendous.
keep it up mate – lets hear from you.
ramesh.
Comment by ramesh — 19/03/2011 @ 6:03 PM |
Alas, I am now back in the UK having completed my travels. Wish I was still on the road!!
Mark
Comment by ilesmark — 19/03/2011 @ 10:32 PM |
You have done what I can only dream of. I plan to do an overland from China to Russia and Ukraine, but I can’t find anywhere that says you can travel unless it is with a tour group in these countries.
How did you get the car across the border? If you bought the car in Europe is it easier to travel on a foreign country rego?
If you can email me it would be appreciated birojek at hot mail. com
Comment by Buddy — 12/06/2011 @ 9:00 AM |
Hi Birojek
My Landcruiser was UK-registered and getting it into Russia was no problem at all apart from the usual paperwork at the border crossing. Russia is not part of the Carnet system, but you DO need to buy insurance at the border. However, I believe that now European ie west of the Urals Russia is part of the Green Card scheme, meaning that if you have EU 3rd party insurance, it will also cover you for Russia. Have a look at the ‘Overland Travel Tips’ section of this site. Also the http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hubb site is excellent for advice on things like this. I didn’t go to Ukraine, so can’t comment on that.
There is no rule that I am aware of specifying that you must be in a tour group in China, Russia or Ukraine. HOWEVER – getting a non-Chinese registered vehicle into China costs a lot of money. Some of this is for the compulsory guide, meaning that if you group together with other travellers then that brings the cost down quite a lot. Therefore, although you don’t need to be in a tour group in China in theory, in practice you may end up in one for this reason.
Mark
Comment by ilesmark — 14/06/2011 @ 7:53 PM |
What a great trip!
My wife and I did the drive trip from Shanghai China to London this Spring (Apr 6~ Jun 5) with our Chinese car via central Asia, Iran, Turkey, etc. Now we are going to drive back in this winter across Siberia… Since I need to be back to work in the UK, the timing is very tight: only 1 month including a couple of days staying at home with my family in China.
BTW, you’ve already know how difficult for a foreigner to drive into China; but you probably don’t know how hard for a Chinese guy to drive his Chinese car out of Chinese border:(
Comment by Chang — 07/11/2011 @ 10:15 PM |