Overlanding The Silk Road

In the initial planning stages of our round the world adventure Joe turned to me one evening and said 'do you think we should try and go to a 'stan' country? I was thinking Uzbekistan.' After some research and a whole load of googling, we found a trip run by a company called Dragoman who offer journeys across Central Asia on a purpose built truck with options to wild camp as well as stay in many of the historical cities of the Silk Road. The mix of camping (which we haven't done at all so far), yurt home stays and opportunities for hiking and horse riding as well as museum stops and tours seemed like a great way to explore some less well visited countries which can be difficult to get to on your own, especially with some legally requiring a native language speaking guide. Our epic journey will take us across northern China, starting in Beijing, before we head to Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Georgia (we decided one 'stan' just wasn't enough!).

After waiting 8 months to get started on this final 3 month leg, we met the Dragoman crew, our fellow passengers and our truck Layla in China's capital. The trip kicked off with a few days exploring Beijing's rich history (mainly by the metro!) with stops at the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven to name but a few, before we headed out on China's super slick highways to start our 44 day long drive across the vast country.