Indian Backpackers !

You got married HB!! Congratulations! I'll buy you are a beer if you are in mumbai! And one for your wife as well. I'll even travel to your area this time....

I will be there in very early may.

Guru,

If it makes you feel any better; I had similar-ish treatment in '98 at the Iran-Turkey land crossing near Tabriz/Dogbiscuit. I was made to wait for 4-5 hours after they had processed all the western tourists and finally after their tea break and nap, they looked at my passport and that of this pakistani guy who was there too; my visa was from the Turkish Embassy in Kuwait and his was from Pakistan. After taking them to some back room for a long time they came back and brought out a deportation log (it said that on the cover) and stamped mine through and deported the Pakistani guy back to Iran. Apparently his visa said that he could only arrive into turkey by plane. In contrast the Iranians were extremely hospitable and pleasant. While Istanbul was an amazing city, and the trip along the black sea to Trabazon was beautiful, the border crossing experience left a bad taste that still lingers.

A

Very Happy to finally find a forum of Indian Backpackers!
Thought one never existed :)

Me and my wife are planning a 3yr + non stop travel around the world... The best part is that we have never traveled before as a couple anywhere outside India...

While Couchsurfing has given us a glimpse and opportunity (burn our ass as we see Europeans traveling) to learn more about traveling...we both have been looking out for lot of information and peculiar problem we might face as an Indian Traveler...

I had posted a similar not nearly 2 months back on another thread on LP but got only 2-3 replies which were more US/Aussie centric....

So all Indian Backpackers out there.... need info desperately on:

1) What is a good budget per day for backpacking for an Indian ? We have budgeted Rs. 3000 per day for two for local travel/stay/F&B?
2) We plan to cover as many countries as possible... but where do we start? SA... Land... till Egypt (Lot of people have told me it is risky)
OR try the safer approach of Europe first?
3) Visas? Whats the cost like for diff countries? Also can we get visa's while on road or do we need to apply for max countries in Mum or Del? (I have a 10yr Multiple and 10 yr Multiple UK visa and have lot of Schengen Visas) Wifey has none.
4) Somewhere in this thread that CS'rs in other countries don't entertain Indians? We plan to do our entire stay (80%) through CS and a bit hitchhiking? We have hosted some 12-16 Europeans and most have said they wld love to host Indians?
5) We plan to do lot of on-land travel and would like avoid air travel... is it possible?

We are itching to start this trip and lost of info is based on the budget and visa's!

Hope to hear from you guys soon.

Cheers!
P&K

Pankaj, as you can see there is not much activity here :). I guess Guru is the one who is true master here. Also do get in touch with aparna at backpackingninja, she been around too.

Me and my wife are into the third month or a six month trip, do drop in a line to me here or at our website down in the signature. Your questions are too broad actually, so no replies. You gotta do a little bit more work in posting in country/continent specific forums. You will get a very good idea.

As Indians, there is not much different except for the visa regulations, on which the safe thing to do is to get the sticky countries out of the way (US, UK, Canada, China, Shengen (your wife may be max 90 days there tho) and rest along the way. You wont get everything anyway, South American countries will ask for entry within 90 days of visa.

Start with South America, reasonably safe and takes time.

Begs the question, why 3 years and not 1, 2 or 5?

Happy travelling.

We traveled to South America earlier in the year and managed couch surfing in Brazil and Argentina. We would've like to do it in Peru and Bolivia as well but unfortunately our plans changed at very short notice so ended up not pursuing it.
Some destinations are very popular in couch surfing like Rio and Beunos Aires so hosts get a lot of requests. We were told by our hosts that the more descriptive and genuinely interested you are in them, better chances of you getting a response. We had a hard time finding hosts but we managed (it was prime season for traveling)
I don't believe couch surfers in South America would not host Indians- to the contrary in our experience people have been extremely curious ( and in a good way).