Thorn Tree travel forum

1

I could imagine if you were spending a bit of time in each place you visited it could be quite a fun road trip but doing it in such a short space of time seems to me that you'ld spend all your time siting in your car. Bit boring!

2

Would you be interested in someone joining you for part of this trip? How much time (roughly) will you be allocating to each place in your 30 days?

Good luck!
Zarc

3

Hi Zarc,

Thanks for the reply. You are welcome to join me for a part of this trip. As the time is short, there wouldnt be a lot of leisure days in any country. The idea is to drive and see as much as possible in the given time frame. Out of the 30 days, we will be driving on 20 days. Now those 20 days wont involve 24 hours driving obviously. some days we will be driving only 5 hours but other days we may be driving for 10-12 hours.

The remaining 10 days wil be for leisure i.e. no driving at all on those days. Following is a rough breakdown of how many days we will be spending in different regions (driving + leisure)

Germany 2
Poland 2
Ukraine 2
Russia 2
Kazakhstan 3
Uzbekistan 4
Kyrgyztan 2
China 10
Nepal 2

As you can see from the above, China has the maximum number of days as its the most difficult terrain in the world. We will be driving on the highest roads in the world so distance wise we wont be able to cover too much in one day.

I hope the above answers your question. Please feel free to ask any other questions

Cheers

Tushar

4

Will you be driving back or ending the trip in Nepal?

5

Hi,

I will be driving from Nepal border to New Delhi, India where the trip will end. I will not be driving back to UK. I will fly back and will arrange for the car to be shipped back to UK.

Cheers

Tushar

6

Hi Tushar,

Thanks for the further info. I am currently considering how I will build my RTW trip. It looks unlikely that this will fit with my plans, but certainly would be fun/interesting and if it does work out, I will certainly keep it in mind as a possibility.

How much do you think this will cost you/what financial support are you looking for from your co-riders? Would you like someone to help with the driving as well? (I have my IDL)

7

Hi Tushar

Your trip sounds great!! I would be very interested in this adventure. What would be the likely costs?

Thankyou Bev

8

Hi Bev,

You are welcome to join us. The cost for the entire trip (including accomodation, fuel, visas, return ticket from india to UK, car depreciation, car shipment from india to UK, meals, all permits for china and tibet etc) will cost around 4000 GBP per person. this cost is not a fixed cost. it can go down a bit or may go up a bit. but based on my research the figure should be somewhere around this.

please let me know yout thoughts.

Cheers

Tushar

9

Seems like an awful lot of money for what is essentially a very rushed and always on the move trip.

The idea of driving from London to Dehli via all those countries really interests me but not at such a pace.

I was slightly interested initially but I'll have to pass.

10

Wow, that's ridiculously expensive. And why should a travel companion have to pay for you to ship your car back to the UK?

11

Hi Tushar, Thankyou for all the info. Yes Miranda i agree that it is costly but by the sounds of it Tushar has done his homework - a lot of planning, enquiring and thought, also the cost wasnt fixed. I would not be able to afford this but ideas start (thankyou Tushar) and develop through imput.
Hey Tushar just a few ideas, have you thought of buying a not so good car (but reliable) to sell on or leave? Also even buy in China (possibly cheaper) and doing it the other way round? Also how about camping and cooking outdoors (allways fun) to save on accomodation costs.
Kind Regards Bev

12

Yes Miranda i agree that it is costly but by the sounds of it Tushar has done his homework

Hey, don't get me wrong. If I'd thought of a way to make a stranger (who doesn't benefit from it) pay to ship my car to my home and pay for my car's 'depreciation' I'm sure I'd be doing it too.

13

Hi Beverly and Mirander,

I would first like to respond to Mirander's comments on this post. Mirander, my intention in planning this trip is not to make money or to rip someone off. Yes, 4000 pounds is definitely a lot of money. Why do you think I am looking for a travel companion? It is because I cannot afford the trip all by myself. And as a travel companion, whoever goes on the trip has to share all expenses equally. If you would like to take your car, I am more than happy to share the shipment costs for the car.

You tell me, why should I pay the whole cost of shipping the car from India to UK, spend all my time and energy in organising the whole trip and on top of that bear that extra cost of shipment for the same holiday for which you only pay the costs of travel and accomodation?

And anyways I am not asking anyone to pay for the whole shipment. Guys, if someone wants to join for only part of the trip, they will end up paying only a small part of the car depreciation and shipment. I am not planning this trip for commerical reasons.

I am also open to all ideas and suggestions to plan the trip if someone thinks I have not thought about some areas sensibly.

The idea is to make the whole experience affordable and enjoyable for everyone.

Beverly, I have infact thought of buying a cheaper car and leaving that in India. However, because we will be driving on the most difficult and the highest roads in the world, it is important to have a car which is very reliable. Another reason why I too would like to have a cheaper car is because of 'carnet'. carnet is a temporary import document for the car. Most asian countries will not let you cross into their border without this document. This document basically acts like a passport for the car and allows you to temporarily import your car in the country. this document is mandatory for India. In UK, only RAC issues this document. The document costs 25% of the cost of the car out of which half is returned to you when the car arrives back in the UK.

All these costs have been included in the total cost of the trip. You will NEVER be able to drive into India without a carnet for your car.

Regarding camping and cooking outdoors, its a great idea and something we can think about. Let me also add that the cost that I have quoted assumes that we will be spending around 40 pounds per day per person on all meals. That is a very steep price and i dont think it will anywhere close to it. For accomodation also, I have based an average cost of 40 pounds per day per person which again is quite high. I have infact spoken to some chinese travel agencies and according to them a room in china does not cost more than 15 pounds a day.

I have over estimated the cost for many areas of the trip because there can be and i think there will be many unforeseen expenses later on.

I have never done this kind of journey before and I too need suggestions in planning and pulling this off.

I hope the above throws some more light on the whole thing

Appreciate your comments guys

Cheers

Tushar

14

Thankyou Tushar i do understand where you are coming from and still do think that is going to be something very interesting to get involved with.

Kind Regards

Bev