My Trans siberian trip

[mike]

As it stands, we are in Australia finishing our working holiday in Perth. From here we will go to China and mongolia, then take the trans siberian railroad to Moscow and ST Petersburg. From there we go to Helsinki and northern Europe to England to visit my partners family in Somerset. After England we go to Florida to buy a small truck and will be driving to Alaska, visiting my family and looking for a city to call home.

So, this is pretty epic, but is completely to do with a job we got in the outback which allowed us to save a lot more money than we had ever hoped for.

As we are leaving Aus on Feb 1, it is going to be proper cold up there. We also love festivals and celebrations. I know we are already planning to see the Harbin Ice festival in China. We will unfortunately miss the Chinese new year as we will still be in Aus, so that sucks.
So anyone have any recommendations for places to see between China and England in the Winter months of Feb and March?

[Prawn_86]

Hi Mike,

Welcome to ATF :)

This trip sounds absolutely amazing! Please be sure to keep this journal updated and post a few pics etc for us

[mike]

I am going to have a ridiculous number of photos after this is all said and done. That is, as long as my batteries don't go dead in the blistering cold! :eek:

[EvansJasmine]

Hey, have you picked any city yet? I wonder what it is like to travel and to have the freedom to decide where you want to live? It must be amazing opportunity! I hope you are enjoying your trip and please share with us some photos ;)

[bazzaboy]

After a 3 day journey on Tazara train from Kapiri Mposhi ,Zambia to Dar es
Salaam,Tanzania think i,m up for Trans Sib.
Train travel is great and on my journey across Africa i met both other
travellers and also locals and at no stage was i bored
So Mike i,ll be tuning in to ATF to hear of your adventure as it,s high on my
to do list
Bazza

[patrik]

Wow, The trip is great. I am sure there will be great adventure in your tour. Please keep us update with your amazing trip experience. Thanks for sharing your tour plan with us.

[mike]

I would first like to apologize as I cannot report back about the trans siberian. We decided not to go through Russia after all. Basically there was a lot of reasons, but the main one was the price and the political situation during the most recent election. We also just worked our tails off in Aus and decided we didnt want to get back to the US and be broke.

We did however go from Aus to Shanghai, to Haerbin, Beijing, Ulan Baatar, back to Shanghai all by train. Then we flew to Germany and did central Europe by train. It was still amazing and very cold and we have a bit of money left over to allow us the freedom to live where we want in the states. Looks like we'll be moving to Chicago in June where we'll save for that Trans Siberian trip. It will happen, I promise.

You can see some cool pics of Mongolia here. We did a home stay thing with a couple nomadic families in the Mongolias Gorkhi Terelj national park (http://www.traveldroppings.com/articles/explore/mongolia/gorkhi-terelj-national-park.php). Ulan Batar (http://www.traveldroppings.com/articles/explore/mongolia/ulaan-baatar-mongolia.php) was great as well. I also loved Shanghai (http://www.traveldroppings.com/articles/explore/china/shanghai-china.php). So there's some photos for you. Sorry its not Russia, but Haerbin did have a very Russian feel if that helps. And we went to the Haerbin International Ice and Snow Festival (http://www.traveldroppings.com/articles/explore/china/harbin-international-ice-festival.php). That was incredible!

Really this was a life changing trip and I can't wait to do it again.