Pigdrl
Traveller
1 comments
Posted 2 weeks ago
Hi there my partner and me have been looking at the Portugal to Singapore trip and wondering about any problems particularly with visas considering the UK’s current relations with Russia. We are pretty experienced travellers but have not done any long rail travel so any advice would be greatly appreciated.
MisterSteve
Traveller
1094 comments
"the Portugal to Singapore trip" ??? Have you been reading an old and out of date blog post? Yes the problem of the whole of western europe's relations with Russia do make this alomost impossible because the EU borders to Russia and Byelorusse are effectively closed unless you want to walk across (and only then a a few points). But this isn't the problem that rendered to blog post pointless because the international trains out of Lisbon were cancelled 2 years before the war on Ukraine started. There are currently no direct trains from Lisbon to Madrid, although something may restart by 2026 once they finish rebuilding the railway- but the recommended direct overnight train to Hendaye will not be resuming because they were losing too much money.
So you problems are you need a new intinery from Lisbon to Paris, which will be harder and slower than the one shown. And you need a lot of research on where you might be able to enter Russia and how you would do it. Only after that is sorted do you need to worry about visas (and I would worry more about getting OUT of Russia than in.)
The main european timetable planner is www.bahn.com but the 2025 timetable starts in 3 weeks time and some countries may not be accurate for dates beyond them (especially Spain!!!). You will probaby find www.seat61.com useful as well.
Pigdrl
Traveller
1 comments
Hi MisterSteve thank you very much for your quick reply. Yes unfortunately it looks like it must have been an old Facebook piece that my partner saw. What a shame, we both got very excited but did wonder just how accurate or possible it would actually be. Thanks again.
MisterSteve
Traveller
1094 comments
If you want a bit of an adventure the overnight Sofia- Istanbul(actually Halkali in the suburbs) overnight train is now running pretty reliably again after a few years of disruption due to track rebuilding. And once you reach Istanbul there is a decent network off the tourist tracks, although the direct trains from Van into Iran seem to be a thing of the past. Seat61 has more details. You could try that starting somewhere far north in Scandinavia. And Turkey accepts Interrail passes which is something that Russia and beyond don't do. In summer there may also be a direct couchette car from Bucharest to Istanbul.
nltrainer
Traveller
1406 comments
As Steve already mentions; THE very best site for this is seat61.
Basically you have 2 routes and gthe ONLY 1 that allows you to use trains on rails nearly all the way, though with some quite big detours/go-around, is via Rossye-China and into laos-Thai (where I am now)- etc. YOu will need visa for Byelorus-Rossye-China (and Laos=pay on entry in US$< its more like an entry ticket). Conditions: do the homework yourself, they can change by the day. AND there may be much more stringent extra rules, like having a guide=chaperonne/guider/minder to lead you through the hassles. Plus that that age-old TransSib train: Mockba-Beijing in 1 week does not run for now.
The other southern route is via Turk-Iran-Paki-India etc and lacks rails for long parts. AND,(Me not UK so just guess here) will need visa for Iran-Pak-India-Bangla-MYANmar(Burma). Those for Iran+ Myanm will be quite hard nowadays and will for Myanm mostlikely not even allow overland entry. My current best friend hails from there. As do thousands of guestlabourers here in BKK. A quite good info site+forum for this is caravanistan.