On a Floating Bridge

The first thing I think you need when planning to leave Japan, going westwards, by ferry is to match up the schedules for the ferry with the long-distance onward train whether that be Trans-Mongolian / Manchurian / Siberian, Baikal-Amur Mainline etc. This is because the trains west of Moscow are much more frequent, and therefore more flexible. ＊＊＊ However, don’t forget that European tickets are cheaper the earlier you buy them so try to get through this difficult planning stage early so you can make savings on your European trains.

Note: Ferries worldwide continue to go bankrupt because of unfair tax and subsidies that are disproportionately lenient to air travel. Check that these ferries are still running before you plan your journey.
If they’re not, please leave me a comment to update this page.

Figure out your requirements

My requirements are:
• To leave (comfortably) asap after 10am on June 6th from Tokyo.
• To minimise stop overs to speed up the journey, spend less on accommodation, and maximise time in the UK
• To not spend too much – each route has its associated costs – visas, expensive Japanese transport to the port location, mandatory stopovers and the number of them.

Your requirements are likely to include
• Places where you DO want to stopover – some routes may leave you a choice of 6 hours or 6 days in one location. You need to plan carefully so you end up stopping over for the right amount of time in the places you want to visit along the way. In 2007 I had a really good distribution – 6 hours in Berlin, 2 full days (1 night) in St. Petersburg, 1 full day (8am ~ 9.30pm) in Moscow, 4 nights in Mongolia, 4 nights in Beijing, a day and a half in Shanghai. This was pretty luxurious and wonderful. This time, I need to focus my budget a bit more.

If you are flexible about when you leave, and how much it costs, the easiest thing to do is pick the country you want to visit – If you want to see China / Mongolia / Tibet? / Kazakhstan? ~ you need to go to China. If you want to see South Korea / the Russian far east along the way, you have to chose the ferry that swings those ways. If like me you need to make a slightly more practical decision based on time and budget, you may feel overwhelmed with figuring out which way actually is the fastest / cheapest.

Use a spreadsheet

If you don’t have spreadsheet software on your computer you can use google docs for free if you sign up for a free email account. If your journey is more simple, maybe you don’t need it, but chances are there are several things you need to work out and a spreadsheet can really help.


So, I’m going to get all the info that I’ve gathered into the maps above into a timetable on a spreadsheet with some estimated costs so I can figure out the first part of the journey. Check back here in a couple of days.

UPDATE: April 12th

So, like I was saying, build a spreadsheet. In 2007, although I was a lot clearer on which route to take, my biggest headache was making sure I didn’t get stuck in Mongolia for 12 days or on the other hand miss it out altogether by having to leave within a few hours of arriving… (how many times do you get to go to Mongolia in one lifetime?!)

This is what my spreadsheet looked like then. You’ll notice that with plenty of stopovers, a decent food and board budget, with visas, heavy luggage shipping and travel insurance all in, it came in at around £1800 for the 24 days, which isn’t so bad. If you’re not actually moving to the other side of the world you can minus the luggage shipping, and if you’re more organised with the trains you can get much better discounts on the European side, and you can of course choose cheaper hotels, lower classes on the trains (I took mostly 2nd with occasional 1st – Mongolia – Beijing, Bejing to Shanghai).


This took a little effort but wasn’t altogether too bad.

On the other hand, there are a hell of a lot of decisions to be made this year!
This is an ongoing process, but basically I’ve selected 3 routes which might work. warning: this is a mammoth image, it will take a moment to load.

Some things I’ve noticed already:
• There is a serious scarcity of info on the Kholmsk – Vanino (Sakhalin to Mainland Russia) ferry. When does it leave? What time is the ticket office open? Does it run everyday? Everyone seems to have a different answer. I emailed about 10 email addresses for various Russian companies associated with SASCO who run this line. I also hit up some couch surfers in the area. I’ll let you know if anything bares fruit.
• On the other hand, trains from Vanino can be booked by emailing the lovely, cheap (compared to other agencies), and reliable Svezhy Veter Russian agency. I had a good experience with them in 2007 and will be using them again this year.
• Tianjin port looks really useful for Beijing connections, but the lack of reliable transport at the port has put me off using it. Qingdao is much better served with more boats running (about 3 per week from Japan and 3 per week from Korea), and a highspeed rail station about a mile and a half down the road.

So there you have it I hope this gives you an idea of how to plan your overland journey starting in Japan. If you know which route you want to go and can be flexible about which day you leave, you should be able to focus on just one route which shouldn’t be too difficult.

Required reading

Seat 61’s itinerary planner
Check Russian / Chinese / Mongolian train times (You can’t book until 45 days before, for more obscure trains – like Vanino to Khabarovsk and BAM – email Svezy Veter)
Check Moscow <> London train times (You probably need to actually book the trains that connect to Russia through a Russian agency though)
Check ferry times via links on my google map - some links go to Japanese only sites