The route

Our route is perhaps slightly overly ambitious, however we’ll see how we get on and adjust our plans as needed (which will require us to change the habits of two lifetimes and become entirely different laid-back people). It takes us through countries and regions we’re both interested in from historical, political, cultural and of course culinary perspectives. There are many other places in the world we’d like to visit, but this is what felt right for this trip. I’ve tried to time the trip so that we avoid the hottest and coldest parts of the year wherever we are.

I have planned for 100km of cycling per day, with a rest day once a week, in addition to time to stop in places longer should we want/need to. This feels feasible based on past trips, but then this is a different proposition to anything we’ve done before. If we don’t end up getting anywhere near where we plan to be, that’s fine. It will be interesting to see how our actual route compares at the end of the trip.

March: UK

This is probably the only part of the entire trip that is fixed in. We’ll set off from our front door in Bristol early(ish) in the morning on Thursday 26th March. We’ve got a fairly long day ahead of us so it will be a good test of how the bikes feel fully loaded and what our fitness is like, not really having ridden for a long time. Probably not great. First night will be in a Premier lnn in Newbury, with the camping not starting until we get to Europe. We’ll get to London on the Friday and spend the day in a pub on Saturday saying goodbye to friends and family, before heading onwards to Dover where we’ll catch the ferry to Dunkirk. A nice flat first day through France and into Belgium to start us off.

Ideal weather: a glorious sunny start, although as we’ll be in Premier Inns/with family the first few nights, we’ll manage with whatever the British weather throws at us.
Looking forward to: starting the trip!
Possible challenges: not being match fit.

April-May: Europe

We’ll make our way down through Europe, passing through the Netherlands (very briefly), Germany, Austria, Italy (again blink and you’ll miss it), back into Austria, then Slovenia, along the coast in Croatia and into Montenegro, before making our way eastwards to Türkiye via Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Greece (for a split second, as per the Netherlands and Italy).

Ideal weather: a warm, sunny Spring.
Looking forward to: cycling in Germany, crossing the Alps in Austria, cycling the Croatian coast.
Possible challenges: crossing the Alps in Austria. Maybe the weather.

May-June: Turkey-Georgia

After navigating through the chaos of Istanbul, we’ll cycle inland across Türkiye. We’re hoping to see the hot air balloons in Göreme National Park and compare them with those in Bristol – they look spectacular so I’m not sure it’s a fair fight. Also hoping to avoid encounters with so-called devil dogs along the way.

After crossing into Georgia, we’ll cycle up the Goderdzi Pass and onwards to Tblisi. It looks like we’ll then have to pack the bikes up and take an earlier than anticipated flight to Aktau in Kazakhstan. l had thought we’d be able to cycle into Azerbaijan and take the cargo ferry across the Caspian Sea to Aktau, but hadn’t realised that Azerbaijan has closed its land borders to entry since Covid times. Some people have managed to get a special permit allowing them to cross into Azerbaijan on bikes, but it sounds unlikely this will happen so we’re not relying on it, which means it will have to be a flight. Not ideal but we don’t fancy popping into either Russia to the north or Iran to the south to get around the Caspian Sea. Of course, with everything going on in the region it’s possible that none of this will be possible and we’ll have to come up with an alternative plan.

Ideal weather: warm but not too hot.
Looking forward to: hot air balloons in Göreme National Park, the Goderdzi Pass in Georgia.
Possible challenges: possibly being too hot. Stray dogs. Having to pack our bikes up for the first flight.

June-July: Central Asia

All being well, we’ll hopefully arrive in Kazakhstan around the beginning to middle of June. Our route will take us into Uzbekistan, Tajikistan – and along the Pamir Highway, on the bucket list of many a cyclist, including me – before taking us through Kyrgyzstan, then back into Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

Ideal weather: warm without being too hot, not too cold in the mountains.
Looking forward to: the Pamir Highway, cycling the Silk Road. Being out of our comfort zones.
Possible challenges: finding veggie food for Holly. The heat. The desert could be pretty relentless.

August-September: China-Mongolia-China

We’ll cross into Xinjiang in China and make our way towards Mongolia. This is a change to our original plan of cycling down through western China, instigated by the announcement of visa-free travel to China for UK citizens for up to 30 days. With our original plan, we would’ve had to go to the visa centre in London and pay for an expensive visa that would allow us to cycle through China over 90 days. This way we can (hopefully) pop into China, then head up to Mongolia which wasn’t originally on the route, before cycling back into China. I’m now really looking forward to cycling the Mongolian Steppe and also going to Beijing, somewhere l used to live, with Holly.

Ideal weather: warm and comfortable.
Looking forward to: the steppes of Mongolia, the country with the lowest population density in the world. Being back in Beijing, this time with Holly.
Possible challenges: could be hot.

October-November: South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and southern China

We’ll take the ferry from Qingdao in China to Incheon in South Korea at the beginning of October. From here, we’ll cycle to Busan via Seoul and the East Coast Trail. Another ferry will take us from Busan to Fukuoka in southern Japan. We’ll make our way to Tokyo, taking a ferry or two along the way, cycling the Shimanami Kaido, a stunning route linking six islands, and avoiding bears as best we can. Once we get to Tokyo, we’ll fly to Taipei, Taiwan. We’ll cycle Route 1, a loop of the island and another route on my bucket list, before flying to Hong Kong. After a bit of pottering around Hong Kong and Macau, and eating lots of dim sum and Portuguese egg tarts, we’ll cross back into mainland China for the final time as we head towards South East Asia.

Ideal weather: comfortable autumn temperatures.
Looking forward to: the Shimanami Kaido. Amazing food (at least for me). The autumnal colours of the trees.
Possible challenges: again, food for Holly. Bears!

December-February: South East Asia

As we enter Vietnam and the final stretch of the trip, we’ll see if reality reflects any of my potentially massively overly-ambitious itinerary. If it does, we’ll be somewhere in Vietnam for Christmas and New Years. We’ll make our way south and cross over into Cambodia where we’ll cycle via Ankor Wat into Laos, then Thailand and Malaysia, before reaching Singapore.

Ideal weather: dry, sunny days.
Looking forward to: delicious, cheap food. Nice weather. Dips in the sea.
Possible challenges: potentially time if we’ve been taking it slower than anticipated.

February-March: Australia

This really is the final stretch. After umming and ahhing about whether we would go to Australia (and also New Zealand at one point too), we decided that it would be a good opportunity to visit my brother Tom in Melbourne seeing as we’ll be halfway there and haven’t been over to see him since he moved to Oz a few years ago. New Zealand is going to be too much to squeeze in this trip, maybe another time. The plan is to take it easy in Melbourne before taking the ferry from Geelong to Devonport in Tasmania. We’ll do a very relaxed loop of the island, cycling shorter distances and eating out a bit more (money permitting). After getting the ferry back to Melbourne, we’ll leave the bikes behind for some sightseeing in Sydney for a couple of days, before heading back to Melbourne and then the UK!

Ideal weather: warm autumnal weather.
Looking forward to: catching up with my brother and cycling around Tasmania together.
Possible challenges: having to face the reality of the trip coming to an end!