Too ambitious an itinerary for 6 months (mostly) overland trip?

Firstly, as you say it's going to be a while remember that the geopolitical makeup of the world can change so whilst that itinerary seems doable now it may not be in the future (border disputes closing borders, increased instability in certain regions, a Chinese government crack-down on foreigners travelling in certain parts of the country....) Though I don't think it will be the case.

As for your itinerary/time frame. It does seem a little tight, Either add some time or cut some places out. Nice route though.

It is possible,but for me too tight.

You will be moving pretty much all the time,without much time to slow down,spend a few days(or weeks) doing side trips or just relaxing and enjoying the country you are in.

1 month in India (to see the whole country) is nothing ;-) And 6 weeeks in China for all of that is extremely short.Also 3 weeks for the whole of Turkey?

I'd either expand your time scale considerably (like double) or change the start and/or finish points

The most important question is, are you used to and enjoy traveling at a fast pace?

To me, your itinerary seems very doable. People will always tell you that you spend too little in each place. That you need 6 months minimum to see a country. My answer is that you can never see everything a country offers regardless how much time you spend. It's all relative. Do you necessarily need to see all of the top 100 highlights of a country, or is it enough to select a sample of them? I recently returned from India, spent about 3 weeks, and to me that was perfect. At the end of it, I had seen so many temples and palaces that I was kind of fed up with them and was ready for something new and different. So, it's really up to you and your style of travel.

As for pitfalls, well what are you doing in Maldives? Package tour? That tends to be very expensive. On the other hand, if you travel independently, you are very limited in what you can do, and you don't really get to experience the Maldives you've seen in pictures. I visited Maldives independently a year ago on my way from Sri Lanka, let me know if you have any questions there.

You start off in HK, then return to the same area (Guangzhou) later. An alternative would be to start in Singapore instead (or perhaps Kuala Lumpur) to acclimatize, then visit HK/Macau when you're in that area anyway after India.

Not sure what the visa requirements are for e.g. Kyrgyzstan/Kazakhstan, sometimes these can take a little while, which makes it complicated when traveling at a high pace. Same with India, the visa process has recently become much stricter and takes around 7-10 days in neighboring countries. (For me, it took over 3 weeks! Luckily I have two passports so I could still travel.) And some visas are easier/recommended to apply for in your home country. Make sure you check all of this long before your trip.

This is a 'pie in the sky' post. Until you are actually ready to go anywhere, I don't see much point in spending time looking at a specific itinerary.

If you want to post to get some motivation etc. then I would suggest posting about things that move you in that direction. ie. 'Any good tips for saving money at home before I go?' etc.

But before even posting on subjects that make sense to post on in that regard, I would suggest you just do some lurking and reading of threads that interest you on whatever branches. You can gain a lot by reading here without having to ask any questions at all. The fact is there are very few questions asked that haven't been asked a thousand times already.

Thanks for the responses. I agree, 6 months does seem to be biting off more than I can chew given the amount of ground that would be covered in that period of time. I'd essentially be travelling just about every day, without being able to linger in places that I decided deserved extra time. I could easily leave out the SE Asia portion, and use that month to spend extra time in China and India.

Yes, a whole year to do this would be preferable, but I think 6 months is the most I could hope for, without disrupting my work life TOO much. An employer might be amenable to a six month unpaid leave of absence, but taking off a whole year would be too disruptive in a number of ways. So it essentially boils down to scaling the itinerary back as at this point, extending the time period doesn't seem possible, right now at least.

max, you make some good points. Why Maldives? Well, because it is there ;) I realize it is a costly destination, so that would certainly have to be factored in. And based on preliminary research, I realize it perhaps isn't the most independent traveller-friendly nation - but if I have any further questions, I'll be sure to ask. And given the places I want to cover, a little backtracking will be necessary.

Travelinstyle, with all due respect, not sure what the motivation was for your post. Surely my post isn't any more "pie-in-the-sky" than a lot of posts on this forum - in fact, I would tend to think it isn't at all compared to a lot of what you see on here ("Got 1 month, where should I go", or "Where would you go for $2500" types of posts). I know exactly which places I want to visit, and know more or less my preferred itinerary. I am asking people who perhaps have had experience travelling extensively in Asia, these regions specifically, if they think this is realistic. And I got some pretty constructive feedback, which more or less confirmed my initial thoughts on the matter. No, I don't have a specific time period set out yet for doing this, and by the time I end up doing it, things could change considerably which would make a lot of my planned itinerary irrelevant. In that case, I do agree with you. But otherwise, not sure what the problem is asking for some feedback on something I very much plan on doing, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Nothing wrong with asking tfc, I'm just saying this question can wait till nearer the time. For research purposes, you can read plenty of other people's posts asking about the same places in the meantime if you feel it necessary. It's pie in the sky in that you have not set a time yet. There are not degrees of pie in the sky with one being more pie in the sky than another. Pie in the sky just means it is something that is not likely to happen until you have a specific plan to achieve it.

For now, it makes more sense to ask about things that are relevant now. Things that will get you to the goal of 'a long term trip'. Until you have that worked out, where you would go on the trip is crossing a bridge before you get to it.

For example, you now mention a leave of absence. Most people just quit work. So a question about 'how can I go about getting a leave of absence from my employer? Does anyone have any good strategies/ideas that worked for them?', would be a question worth asking now since you may need to start working towards that NOW. It may be that discussing this with your employer a year before you go is a good strategy, more likely to get you a leave than waiting till a month before you plan to go, to ask for a leave.

So what I am saying is don't put the cart before the horse. First get your plan in place as to how you will achieve two things, having the time available (leave of absence or not) and the funds available. Spending your time and effort on those two comes before spending time on an itinerary. I consider that constructive criticism tfc, intended to help you. Where you will go is the easy part.

^Points taken. And yeah, I don't disagree that in certain respects, a lot of it is putting the cart before the horse until I have a set time period in which to travel. But the way I see it, it doesn't hurt to plan now, because planning now might better determine whether or not I could realistically pull this off, and if I can't, it makes asking my employer for a leave of absence a non-issue.

And yes, if posting my thoughts on here is a way of making this seem like more of a possibility, rather than some distant dream, then perhaps I stand guilty as charged ;) In any case, thanks for the feedback. You seem to be one of the more regular contributors to TT, and I enjoy reading many of your posts.

OP -- I agree that you need to fine tune your thinking. Read through the country forums here and on other sites and then post specific questions in the relevant country forums.

But why would you need a week to get psyched up? In Hong Kong, of all places? Surely you'd do that before leaving home.

Why a week in Singapore? And why only two in Pakistan? (BTW -- you will need to obtain your visa for Pakistan before leaving your country of permanent residence, and take care how you word your application.)

I assume you're from the US, otherwise I'd strongly encourage you to re-route your journey via Iran from Central Asia. It's a fantastic country to visit, with great transport infrastructure.

Entering China from Pakistan puts you into Xinjiang province. Leaving China for Central Asia does the same thing. The Chinese reject visa applicants who indicate they will enter this province, so the itinerary you submit to get your visa will have to be creative, possibly with tickets to substantiate it.

Travellers from most developed nations no longer need visas to enter Kyrgyzstan. Getting a visa for Kazakhstan is easy and cheap in most parts of the world.

There ferry across the Caspian is, according to all reports, very unreliable. You may have to allow 7-10 days just for that sector.

But overall, read the relevant country forums and post specific questions there.

emmeff,

Thanks for posting. I'm Canadian as it happens, and yes, Iran strikes me as being an interesting country. However having had a taste of Central Asia last year, the whole region interests me, and I'd like to see more of it. That doesn't necessarily preclude going to Iran of course, although the decision of the Canadian government last year to close it's embassy in Iran, while perhaps not making travel there impossible, certainly makes it more arduous, with little in the way of consular help should things go wrong.

I agree the whole Xinjiang issue could be problematic, and I would have to look into the process of obtaining a Chinese tourist visa a little more closely, and how I'd go about it if I was interested in going to this region. For instance, I know for my Uzbek LOI, I had to specify the areas I planned to visit, and I am sure China is no different. But once I had the visa, I could pretty much go where I wanted without much hassle. I'm sure China may well be different in this regard and probably they monitor travellers more closely, especially if there are suspicions about Xinjiang being on the itinerary. So yes, it's something to consider.

I agree that more specific questions should be in the respective regional forums - and certainly when the time approaches to finally embark on this journey, I'll no doubt be doing that. I really was just trying to get feedback on whether I was biting off more than I could chew with this itinerary, in this time frame, and the general consensus seems to be that I am (unless I don't mind travelling non-stop, racing around the continent, which doesn't sound much fun). Thanks for your input.