How much do I need to do before leaving home??
 

Planning the big trip and working out paperwork requirements.

The intention is to go over 2 or more years. I see the trip in 4 different sections

UK - India
South east asia and Australia
The americas
Russia - UK

My question is Do I have to get all my Visas before leaving home??
My plan (with out knowing what i'm doing) is to get all the visas between UK an Aus to begin with and then get the ones for the americas in Australia. and the Visas for the leg home in America.

Thanks

Well, I can say you have to do a bit more than that, because you cannot get all your visas ahead of time, oh that it was so easy!!!

Even trying to get a visa for one country in the middle of the leg, may mean being on the ground near the border, then sending your passport back home to get it stamped.

You will need to do exactly what I am doing now, trolling these and other pages, trying to find the magic bullet.

You will have to visit many websites for each country along your route, contacting the embassy etc etc.

Each visa is of limited time, so unless you plan and stick to a strict time schedule(with NO problems along the way) then it will be very hard to do.

EG- Maximoto has been stuck in Pakistan for a month trying to get a visa for Iran, so she can continue westwards.

Just one of those things that make the adventure I guess :)

The other things to consider are weather constreictions on the route, can you get through that pass right then, that also means you have to have those visas to cover that time period.

Sorry to sound a tad negative, but I can say, that doing the US and all the way south was very easy for me(Ozzie) because the only visa I needed was for the US all the rest of the countries were like Europe, nothing needed.

Cheers and good luck
If you do find the Holy Grale, please let me know ;)

Cheers
TravellingStrom

I'm planning the same route and my current plan of attack is:
Get the Pak one in the UK, along with the NOC for Balochistan
Get the Iran one in Turkey, where apparently the embassy staff are a bit nicer to 'nutjobs'/less suspicious
From there on the visas get a lot more straightforward.

I'll get the ones I need to get from Aus to Europe via the stans arranged in Aus - might pick them up elsewhere though - such as Ulan Ude for Mongolia.

I've 'lost' visas before by getting them too far in advance and then running into mechanical issues/russian women/vodka along the way that have meant my dates had gone - good money down the drain! (no regrets though :innocent:)

Make sure you get a multiple-entry business visa for Russia, they hand them out pretty easy and are well worth it for flexibility.

A little bit of good news for you...SE Asia should be a breeze, no need to plan too far in advance as visas are available at most borders :thumbup1: