Hi all

1st post on her but have been reading this site for months and have found some great infomation. I am looking to do a round the world trip in a couple of years and am looking at some advise on a time range as my possible travel partner would like a rough time scale. my route would be something like this but obviously things change and i also understand china maybe a issue.


UK France, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore.

Ship the car to Australia

drive around Australia for a couple of months.

Ship the car to Belize

Belize, Mexico USA and Canada.

Ship the car to South Africa then go up the west coas back to the UK.

I Know this is almost a how long is a piece of string question, but any sort of timescale would be helpfull.

cheers

You may have a problem with the China segment.
Ocean shipping times are unknowns at this time.

Jules Verne says it's 80 days...

Hi
Yes you are right about this question 'how long is a piece of string?'
Loads of people spend a whole summer in Europe.
As for Australia, a couple of months will hardly get you up the east coast. I think you should consider at least a couple of years but more like three if you want to experience the countries rather than just the highways as there certainly won't be too much time for fun if the trip is much shorter than that.
Everyone has their own idea's on this one. How much time equals how much money?
Plan what you can afford, don't rush it too much, you may not ever pass that way again.
Good luck!

The "how long is a piece of string" is accurate as there are lots of different ways you could cut this but to try and give you some base, I would allow the following if I was doing it. For context I've done most of it including trans Africa but from Uk - SA, lived and travelled round Aus over five years, overlanded from Hong Kong to Uk but by public transport. I haven't done much in Central / North America.

My assumtion is that I want to allow enough time to really see the places along the way, be able to stop off for a few days so not driving 500 miles every day but equally not going that slowly because assuming at some stage I have to come back to the real world and so have a finite timescale.

UK - Singapore - 9 months.
Australia - 6 months
Belize - US - 9 months
SA - UK via west coast - 9 months
Shipping - assume somewhere between 4 - 8 weeks for each section (also dependent on whether this is lined up in advance or whether you wait until you get to a port before you work out who / how to ship).

As mentioned, you could do it alot faster if you just drive each day, you could do it as slowly as you like - years and years but the estimates above are my personal opinion on the minimum I would allow for each part (ideally I reckon I would like about 5 - 7 years for all of this route). To me, if I found I could not spare that much time, I would then start cutting back the journey rather than looking to drive faster. You could always do other sections like Africa later rather than compromising the whole trip by rushing it.

Only my opinion - good luck in what ever you decide.

Thanks for the help. I was looking to do this to raise money for cancer research but maybe im trying to do much in a to little time. really want to drive around the world but have always dreamt of london to cape town! May have to rethink a route

Well spoilt for choices - choose what best suits you, and your travelling partner. The fewer compromises the better.

__________________
ChrisC

I'm thinking I will only have a year so may drop of north america.

do you think its possible to go overland to OZ, then spend a 3 months in OZ and then drive the west coast from Cape Town to London in a year?

also there may be 3 of us in one vehicle, what do you think is the best option?

any advise is appreciated.

No, you are still trying to do way too much. One year for even that trip is, in my opinion, ridiculous. Think again, see what other people have said (they are seasoned travellers so know through experience) unless you want to spend your whole trip in you car driving, go back to the drawing board!
Of course, this is just my opinion! At the end of the day it's your trip and if that' the way you want to do it then good luck!

Hi kastad

Looking at your latest route with a time scale of a year, I think you need to drop ahlf of the route. Based on our travel experience

UK - India will take around 4 months which will allow some time to see the countries.

(India warrants at least 6 months to explore)

India - Oz you'll be looking at around 3 months to allow for shipping times but you will not have the time to explore to any of these great contries en route so to save time maybe ship straight from India to Oz.

As previosly mentioned you'll need some time in OZ (again at least 6 months)

Your trip from SA back to Europe normally takes 6-8 months.

I think if you only have a year you should do either UK-OZ / UK-SA / or your pan american trip.

Whatever you do don't rush as these trips are costly so you want to make the most of them as you probably won't get another chance to repeat the trip.

Becky

I'd concur with the above two posts. On simple maths- if you only have 12 months, you spend 3 months in Aus, even if you have the shipping lined up in advance and everything goes exactly to plan your going to lose at least 4 weeks on each section shipping and could quite easily be longer. That drops you to 7 months which leaves about 3 1/2 months to get from Uk to Singapore and 3 1/2 months to get from Cape town to UK. Whilst theoretically probably possible, the logistics would be massive because all visas have to be lined up in advance, you can't afford any significant break downs etc. Then you get into other constraints such as visas tend to only be valid for so long. Therefore you could line up your first few but you can't line up the whole trip in advance so you either need a support crew and second passports running around in UK whilst your travelling sorting out visas etc to try and keep to time table. End result - massive costs with two sections of shipping, all those visas etc, but experiance and see very little. Most of the time will be head down driving long distances every day. Personally can't see the point although some people do take that approach so each to their own. As per Becky's post, I'd pick one of these routes and take the year to do it. You'll have a much better time and see much more and it will cost you less.

What ever time scale you come up with "DOUBLE IT"

We are still going strong after 10 months and Oz 12 months is not enough we are trying for another visa.

Check out the website

__________________
www.landroveradventure.co.uk
Land Rover Discovery 2, Yamaha Super Tenere

Hi All

Thanks again for all your advise, this is going to be my first overland trip so judging the time to get to places is so difficult. It's also so difficult deciding which part I should do, I am thinking of delaying but have got itchy feet at the moment. also a nightmare deciding how much money I will need.

I know its all preferences but could I ask you all what your own prefered routes are.

regards

Hmmmmm

Thats a tough question your asking and you'll not get a straight answer I'm afraid as they are so different.

Overland to Oz will give you an amazing varied experience through some great countries with great people - however you probably won't have as much time to really explore each country as time will be wasted on shipping.

Overland to SA will give you more time in each country as theres no shipping involved.

For 12 months trip you need to consider not necessarily which is the best route as they are so different but what will suit your time scale - you can always do the other routes later on.

Good Luck

Becky

Thanks Becky, I have looked into this and it seems that £30 aday is a realistic budget! what do you think?

Yes, 30 GBP per day is close for one car with 3 people. We spent Euro 55 per day, 2 people in a LC. That is door to door, one year through Africa, including everything. Mind you that 50% of the cost is fuel and fuel prices have increased quit a bit since 2005/2006.

Cheers,

Noel
exploreafrica.web-log.nl