Route

This is approximately the route I planned for my trip. I just tried to find some places along the route and I couldn’t immediately find every place I would like to visit, so there are of course some differences to the actual path I’m going to take. But since I will probably have to improvise sometimes on the trip anyway - some roads may be blocked, maybe I would like to stay a bit longer in some places, needing to take a shortcut later on, … - I will sometimes post some updates about the plans for the next week(s).

While my main goal this year - as you may guess from the title of this blog ;-) - will be China, it will be still more than two weeks until I will reach my first city, Beijing, there. I will travel the whole way by train, the major part using the transmongolian (transsiberian) railway.

Along the way I’ll be stopping a few times. On the one hand I would like to see at least some cities in Russia/Mongolia and on the other hand staying on the train for more than five days (Moscow-Beijing) would be probably a bit long.

Although I will more or less start in Moscow, I will not spend much time there, since the city has so much to see that it would be worth a longer trip, anyway. Therefore my first real stop will be Yekaterinburg, where I will be staying for a bit more than one day. Approximately halfway between Moscow and Beijing, Irkutsk (and lake Baikal) seems to be the perfect place to catch breath for a few days. Finally the mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar, while certainly not the most beautiful city, is more or less a must stop before continuing to Beijing.