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Some of the more common overland routes in Asia

Overland travel or overlanding refers to a journey performed without the use of flights or boats - a famous historical example being Marco Polo's first overland expedition in the 13th century from Venice to the Chinese court of Kublai Khan. Today overlanding is a form of extended adventure holiday, often in a group. Overland tour companies provide a converted truck or bus and a tour leader, and the group travels together overland for a period of weeks or months. Individual travelers may use public transport, personal motor vehicles, bicycles, or even travel on foot.



At 9,288 km (nearly 6.000 miles) the Trans-Siberian Railway is one of the longest overland journeys in existence today, taking seven days to reach Vladivostok from Moscow, and providing an alternative to air travel for journeys between Europe and Asia. The Chinese, Russian and other governments are discussing a high-speed (around 320 km or 200 miles an hour) line on this route.


In the USA Amtrak can carry you overland from New York across the continent to San Francisco on the Pacific Coast and back and forth across the continent using different routes, just a part of their 21,000-mile train line system, Canada's VIA rail offer similar services; see Rail travel in Canada.

The introduction of Japan's high speed railway, Tōkaidō Shinkansen, in 1964 changed the face of rail travel. The railway has carried more than 4 billion passengers and its new N700 series trains are capable of 300km/hr. France's TGV (tres grand vittese or very high speed) attains similar speeds, making it faster than air travel for many journeys. It has expanded into other European countries. Korea and the USA now also have some high-speed lines. China is in the process of building what will be the world's largest such network; see High-speed rail in China.

The European Rail Timetable (formerly published by Thomas Cook) is the first choice for detailed paper European (and some international) rail information. Resources can also be found at the Seat 61 website.

Overland Independently by Vehicle[edit]

Overlanding over recent years has become much more popular for those looking to travel overland Independently. Currently the main routes for independent overlanders are the following: • Europe to Africa • Europe to Asia • North America to South America

Many examples of travelling overland independently can be found on Overland Sphere

Buses and Overland Safari Trucks[edit]

The Silk Road historically connects the Mediterranean with Persia and China. Today the route refers to overland journeys between Europe and China, taking either the northern route - through Russia and Kazakhstan - or the southern route - through Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and North India - to Urumqi or Xi'an in China. These routes are still popular today, with companies such as Oasis Overland Oasis Overlan and Odyssey Overland offering tours on the southern route.

Trans Africa Overland routes[edit]






Since 2006 a few companies have offered overland expeditions from the UK to Australia. Originated by Exploratory Overland Expeditions [1] in 2006, the expedition is marketed as the longest trans-Asian overland journey available.

The longest overland expedition of any kind is run by African Trails; their London-Cape Town-Istanbul journey (43 weeks) remains the classic overland expedition for die-hard travellers. Though the longest combination of trips is 50.5 weeks run by Dragomanfrom Helsinki, Finland to Cape Town, South Africa via Russia, China, Middle East, following the Nile and to Kenya and on to southern Africa.

These days’ overland journeys explore most continents the only one not yet travelled is Antarctica, Overlanding companies such as Flatdog Adventure, make overlanding a fantastic next step from a fully inclusive hand held tour to that of full independent travel.

See also[edit]

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