Anyone ridden it before? I've always wanted to go from one end to the other.
How is the opinion of tourists on it? Is it difficult to navigate without speaking a lick of russian or chinese?
and how about the visa system? i have heard you would need a visa in one or more of the countries to full-ride it, but do you REALLY?
General-trans siberian thread
any stories, tips, recommendations
Locals will see you as a oddity, but there's tourists on every train now. They ride the train for a few stops because they can't fly to where they want to go. They don't see why someone would want to do it.
If you're traveling by yourself, it's difficult without any Russian. Try riding Amtrak only speaking Russian, see how far it gets you.
You need a visa. It's an extra cost to going to Russia, but unless you're interested in people smuggling you need a visa.
Try riding a train closer to where you are first, see if you like it. It kind of gets boring pretty fast, especially on east-west routes. It's pretty much this, for 5 straight days.
Only people I know who liked it had a private room, and a partner.
How cool is it to go along the railway but not in a straight shot? Many stops and detours along the way. I'm planning on doing this this summer, but I'm not sure what I'm doing yet. I study Russian btw
Traveling by railway is awful boring.
By the way all of normal russians speaks english like me)
you'll need drugs or lots of alcohol.
>>1066060
And a lot of deodorants!
Were are you going to have a bath or samething?
A friend of mine rode it from Beijing to Moscow or St Petersburg, can't remember which. Main points:
>Mongolia was cool
>Russian border was intimidating as fuck
>Spent most of his time drunk because no one spoke English and it was boring as fuck
>Better as an abstract idea/story than an actual experience
I doubt I'd ever do it but it's a neat thing to be able to say you did.
