3 years in the planning…
During 2019 I made a plan. I was going to leave my (perfectly good) full time job at a prestigious (work with me people) law firm, to take a 3 month contract at a prestigious bank (seeing the theme yet?) after which I was going to “go travelling”. More specifically, to travel overland along the silk road. By now, its March 2020 – can we all remember what happened then?
Luckily I was able keep working (for which I am eternally grateful or else I really would have gone crackers!), followed by a stint working in Switzerland for a cool tech company (makes a change from all that prestigious-ness) I was then now ready to execute: THE PLAN.
The Plan has had to adapt a little as due to various restructions I was not able to start in China, but I was also able to expand on The Plan. Once reaching Istanbul, one option was to take the route of the Orient Expess and get back to London in just 2 days (an excellent article is available on this here: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2023/sep/16/in-the-tracks-of-the-orient-express-my-train-ride-from-london-to-istanbul?utm_source=eml&utm_medium=emlf&utm_campaign=Email_Roundup21092023_UK&CMP_TU=mrtn&CMP_BUNIT=holys) however, I have gone for a slightly longer/more complicated route!
Stage 1 – Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) to Ashgabat (Turkmenistan)
Stage 2 – Baku (Azerbijan) to Yerevan (Armenia).
Stage 3 – Turkey and The Balkans (Istanbul to Slovenia)
Stage 4 – North Italy
Stage 5 – The Baltics
Stage 6 (Final stage) – Europe (and home)
2025 Update
It is now June 2025, and I survived re-entry into the real world. I found a job (back to the prestigious-ness of one of the “Big 4”) and moved back to London.
However, the time has come (as China is now open again) to go back and execute the beginning of THE PLAN…
Stage 7 – China
Travels with Kathryn 