Now I know overlanding isn't a race and the more deadlines you have the harder it becomes to enjoy your trip, however something has come up that has made me do mental gymnastics.

We're planning on crossing Russia, The Stans, Mongolia on route to Korea, where we have all but secured work and travel visas for a year to help build funds for our trip.

Now we really want to work the winter in Whislter (it's where we got engaged) and the main recruitment day is the 27th September and due to a Family commitment we know we'll be in Volograd on the 2nd July. Giving us just over 2 and a half months to have ourselves and Idealing our bikes in Canada.

Ideally we want to take in the Pamir Highway in this time however this adds almost 3500 miles to the route rather than the 11000 we would take on our route with out it well be doing 14500 allowing 2 and half weeks rest that's 180miles a day versus 230 miles a day.

Now I don't need to really make a decision on this until we arrive in Istanbul where we need to get our Visas for the Stans.

No there is a slim chance we could end up riding the Pamir Highway in the future even before we return home on this trip.

There are alot of pros to avoiding the Pamir Highway at this point: Save money on Visas, Fuel etc, Spend more time with people and places we like on our journey, more freedom with the route etc.

I'm sure many overlanders have come up against this or similar arguements it would be great if others could help me make up my mind what is right for us.

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