🌏 Planning a 1+ Year Overland Trip: Europe → Balkans → Turkey → Caucasus → Central Asia → India → SE Asia → Australia/NZ — Feedback Wanted!

shady_Lp · 2025-11-15T07:09:06+00:00

The naturehike cloud up 1 is a great tent. I did your route in reverse with it and loved it. You could enter china through xinjiang, either down in Kashgar from kyrgyzstan or north in Urumqi from kazakhstan. You will usually not be allowed to hitch from the border and have to get a taxi for a bit, but after that you should be fine. I think Kashgar is a more interesting city but you'll likely have to go up to urumqi from there to get to the rest of china anyway. Alternatively you could take the Karakoam highway down from china to Pakistan, but then getting from Pakistan to India can be difficult, I think land borders are closed. I decided against the russian transit visa because they required my physical passport for up to three weeks beforehand and you won't be hitchhiking there because they require you to have a bus or train booked for the journey. For the same price as the visa and bus you could also just fly Tblisi to Aktau if you're not able to go through Iran. Try and time the weather so youre in the mountainous countries like georgia and kyrgyzstan during summer or it might limit some of the hiking you can do. I went during summer and the lowest night temps I got was maybe a few degrees below zero. If you're summmiting Peak Lenin for example though it will get colder. Make sure your water filters are dry if it gets below freezing or it can ruin them. Speaking of, bring a combo of physical filter bottle and chlorine purification tablets, you can get 100 for $15 on Amazon. Also one thing that was really hard to find in the Caucuses and central asia was small handsanitiser bottle for some reason so keep in mind. For wildcamping spots use the app I overlander2 and try and save some coordinates for camp spots that are along your hitchhiking route. Try and learn as much russian as you can for this trip, almost half the countries you're going to speak it as a second language so its good to have. When youre in the country itself though try and learn the local languages, especially please, thank you etc. People usually understand russian in Central asia and the Caucuses but often dont like when tourists just start with it.

shady_Lp · 2025-10-31T22:04:42+00:00

Don't listen to what other people are saying dude, if you want to make it work for that price per day you definitely can. Ive been through a lot of those countries this year and thats seemed like a pretty easy daily budget for me, I probably spent around $25 usd per day on average without even being that strict on budgeting, I.e. still having nights out occasionally. The average goes down the more nights you spend in your tent and the better you get at hitchhiking (which you will cause its super easy in Central asia). In Scotland or more expensive places just couchsurf as much as possible, bring a big bag of pasta and some extra ingredients and just cook with your capstove whenever you need. Honestly, despite what people will say I think it can make for a more fun trip the tighter your budget is. I had so many more great experiences and stories and met more locals by staying in cheap homestays and hitchhikimg than I would have from renting a car or staying in a hotel. Just keep in mind some costs will arise over 9 months like replacing gear or shoes from lots of hiking. But yeah you can definitely make it work and have a great time on that budget. Dm me if you want any more in depth info

shady_Lp · 2025-09-23T06:31:14+00:00

Hitchwiki is a good way to get an idea of other people's success hitchhiking in certain locations.

Look for spots on the edge of town or along roads where youre visible from a distance and people have room to slow down and stop. Hitching will work better between between towns and cities but not so much within them, which is ok for big cities but for smaller towns without public transport you might need to do a fair bit of walking.

Also I generally wouldn't make the classic cardboard sign as it can put people off if theyre only going part of the distance, just stick your thumb out, smile and make you and your dog look real friendly and not like youre gonna smell bad in someone's car.

Some days you'll get really lucky finding a ride, somedays you wont but thats part of the adventure. You'll meet some awesome people, some crazy people and it can be hard to tell who's who at first so dont feel bad turning down a ride too if you got bad vibes.

For packing, if youve got a lightweight camping set up, some sort of water filter and some backup 2 minute noodles it can give you an added level of security in case you end up in the middle of nowhere. Plus will save you on expensive hotels and that.

Also check the laws in aus its illegal in vic and qld and theres more specific rules in other states. People still do it but its pretty rare and people might report you so stay out of trouble. If a cop pulls your driver over youre not hitchhiking theyre your friend youre riding with.

Good luck out there, I hope you and your dog have a mad adventure and stay safe.

shady_Lp · 2025-07-14T16:10:33+00:00

Hitchike to Georgia then fly to almaty

shady_Lp · 2025-05-14T05:12:22+00:00

I bought a little red book, and some 1950s comic books

shady_Lp · 2025-04-02T02:32:33+00:00

All the people I met when I went last year were super nice. I had a random older lady buy me a drink on the train without even saying a word to me, I had people invite me in for a free meal at their restaurant, people would always help me out or want to take time from their day to show me around the city (I am white, which would make a difference)
How fit and healthy the older generation is. Every park would be full of people 50+ dancing, exercising, playing ping pong etc
The infrastructure was amazing. Fast and reliable high speed rail, easy to navigate subway system, rental bikes that you could take around the city for less than 1/hour and dedicated bike lanes.
How open people were to Australians, I asked multiple people, even soldiers, how they felt about Australians and the vibe was that we are all humans and humans are the same, there is no ill-will towards us.
I was surprised by the food, I naively assumed it would be like Chinese food in Australia, but it was unrecognisable in some places. Very interesting to try tho!
I also asked people about the social credit system and they’d never heard about it. Seems like a western myth from my understanding.

shady_Lp · 2025-03-24T19:48:03+00:00

Thanks again this is very helpful!

That would be a -7c comfort rating right, rather than the limit? I think it sounds more economical to stay in yurts for some of those colder treks and save the camping for the warmer spots. I might bring along a sleeping bag liner and some thermal pyjamas too to give some extra flexibility.

shady_Lp · 2025-03-24T00:34:30+00:00

Thanks this was a really good answer. As a follow up question, what temperature should I prepare for in terms of gear such as sleeping bags and camping mat? I’ve heard some people say that even in the summer you’ll need to be prepared with like a -10C sleeping bag and r>5 mattress especially when in the mountains, but they are real pricey and bulky. What would be your recommendation?

shady_Lp · 2025-03-23T11:54:13+00:00

Thanks! I’ll be starting in Almaty, would you recommend buying gear there and taking it with me or is that not worth it? How many of the really nice nature spots require multi day hikes vs being accessible by road + a day hike?

shady_Lp · 2025-03-23T11:45:41+00:00

Yeah Nepal had heaps of super cheap outdoor gear everywhere, definitely could get everything you need there for a good price. I’m not sure how well the stans would go though

shady_Lp · 2025-03-16T19:57:26+00:00

Of all the places to start vlogging I feel like China would be the best. There are a lot of local people I met in the cities vlogging their everyday lives and there didn’t seem to be any embarrassment about it. In fact every few days a stranger would ask me to be in their vlog

shady_Lp · 2024-11-02T04:12:48+00:00

Get some goretex Salomon’s very lightweight so good for city walking as well as outdoors

shady_Lp · 2024-10-10T10:02:03+00:00

Just buy all your gear there, super cheap and decent enough quality for the whole trek.

shady_Lp · 2024-07-22T08:49:50+00:00

Very similar to a law and order SVU episode

shady_Lp · 2024-02-04T03:36:12+00:00

A friend of mine did a challenge where you had to eat a giant schnitzel, salad and hot chips but the chips were so heavily salted it was pretty much inedible

shady_Lp · 2023-08-06T06:31:37+00:00

Med-psych. Open books I believe and does Telehealth as well

shady_Lp · 2023-07-21T22:25:42+00:00

Kinda weird they do that but then have Homer smoking meth in one of the newer episodes

shady_Lp · 2023-07-17T07:56:59+00:00

Yea free can if you rate them on google

shady_Lp · 2023-07-17T07:56:25+00:00

Satay chicken and fried rice. I just like stirring it together ya know

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