Zurich to Tokyo: Help me plan my trip!

July 2, 2007 9:28 PM

Help me plan my trip! I want to leave Zurich in late October. Heading east, I would like to end up in Tokyo in January. I would like to travel by train or plane and keep costs well under $10,000. Where should I go? I think I'd like a rather versatile trip. Thanks!
posted by mrunderhill to travel & transportation (3 comments total)

What a dream! Best of luck.

I have yet to travel that part of the world, so will offer no suggestions. Will you have a blog?
posted by Galen at 9:39 PM on July 2, 2007

You haven't told us anything about who you are, what you like to do, how much travel experience you've had so far, and what your standard of living is like. Would you like to spend the whole three months traveling, or would you prefer to settle down in one or several places en route?

Keeping that in mind, if this were my trip, I'd head overland from Moscow to Beijing via the Trans-Mongolian railway, stopping at least in Irkutsk to explore and do some trekking around lake Baikal, then again in Ulan Bataar and possibly doing a side-trip to the Gobi desert. You might also consider getting off the train (in Omsk, I think) to head south through Kazakhstan. Be warned that heading through Russia is a complicated situation for a someone on a tourist visa (easily doable, but somewhat intimidating), and that if you can, a business visa will make your life far easier.

(You could also take the Trans-Siberian to Vladvostok, then take a ferry to Hokkaido, and work your way south towards Tokyo on local trains--a long and slow journey, but surely a hell of a lot of fun.)
posted by soviet sleepover at 9:52 PM on July 2, 2007

We've sort of covered questions like this before, here, here, and here.

A few tips:
- I'd say low-cost airline flights will give you the most bang for your buck crossing oceans. Skyscanner and Mobissimo have low-cost airline booking engines for the Middle East, India, and Asia. Flying also gives you the freedom to skip countries you might want to avoid or jump over.
- The most amazing overland travel site ever is Seat 61, which is an exhaustive non-commercial railway site for every country in the world with railways. All of them. Seriously.
- Pack little - like enough for a week. Stay southern/tropical to stay warm - go via the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia.
- Use an Visa/Mastercard-branded debit card from your bank and use ATMs in your destination - they've become so ubiquitous that it's to the point now that guidebooks go out of their way to say that places don't have them.
- If you've got a Swiss passport, check that you won't need to get any visas in advance; many times you can get visas at any embassy of the country you plan to visit along the way, but some countries specify that you've got to get the visa in the country of your passport only.

Have a great time!
posted by mdonley at 11:16 PM on July 2, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]