Which Agent for Trans Siberian Tickets

I think you'll find the info you need and much more here:
http://www.seat61.com/Trans-Siberian.htm
(a great site for all things rail...)

Thanks sfgirl. I use seat61 but I am looking for specific recommendations from people who have used agents

I'd do a search in the archive, I know people have asked on the forum and then posted when they decided...

I just got through buying a series of tickets for the TransSib from tutu.travel. Nothing could have been easier. There is an about 10% surcharge over buying them on the rzd.ru website. The other alternative is Real Russia. They are more expensive (about 20-25% markup) but there are folks there who will actually work with you to work out a schedule if that is not something you feel comfortable doing yourself. I think either site it is worth the charge over rzd.ru. Tutu will also respond to an email question very quickly if something has you confused but I didn't try to get them to do whole trip planning and I don't think they would. Here's what is great about using tutu: trains are not posted for more than 45 days out. So you make up a date that is similar to what you want to do - i.e., an odd numbered day on a Friday. Put that in and ask for the trains from your last stop to your next stop. Pick your best train. Then on the lower left hand side note that there is a highlighted text for Annual Schedule. Click on that and see if that train will travel on the date you want. The time might be a little off - most of my trains when the date finally arrived were different from before by anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes. But that is no big deal. The key is knowing you want a train that leaves and arrives at a time that is convenient to you and, if you have a choice, with a low number, best less than 100. So when it gets to be about 60 days out, go to tutu.travel and enter the day you want. It will come up as not available but we will send you a notice when it is. Sure enough at 8 am Moscow time on the day the tickets go on sale, I get an email saying buy your ticket now. Do get them as early as you can. I went back and looked at one of my segments a little over a week later and saw that there were only four compartments left. Also note that all times are Moscow time, but tutu also gives you the local time - which can be confusing for some stops since the maps are not always clear where the time zones are for small cities. We are stopping in St Pete, Moscow, Kazan, Yekat to change trains but we get a day at liberty, Taiga for Tomsk (there are also direct trains in and out of Tomsk), Irkutsk and Ulan Ude - then Mongolia. Good luck with your trip planning.

This topic has been automatically locked due to inactivity. Email community@lonelyplanet.com if you would like to add to this topic and we'll unlock it for you.