https://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/2008/04/how-everything...
Btw. I nearly traveled from Budapest to Hamburg in a single train but alas as written above I had to put in a stop in Munich just so that I could finish my order (both routes were roughly 14hours which I found quite manageable).
I’m trying to think, what would be the most efficient way to compute this? There has to be something better than brute force
If your definition includes a visa-free journey with no need to change trains, then the theretical limit is pretty easy to figure out: Minsk - Vladivostok. The second longest theoretical journey would probably be northern British Colombia down to Mexico / Guatemala border.
Why should it take them into account? 99% of the time they're a trivial matter.
There's zero people in this world that don't have to avoid certain countries. Even if you magically get a visa for every country (and I would only describe 1/4 visas in my passport as trivial), that's not a guarantee you will be able to actually enter and leave the country uninterrupted.
Every single person that visited a ridiculous amount of countries has at least one story to tell about how they were apprehended and accused of being a spy. Using fringe little train lines usually not taken by anyone non-local would raise even more red flags than doing the same with other types of transport (motorcycle / bike / car).
Paranoid much? It's not for the average Joe Tourist, but tons of people do such big trips (including friends). And I know people who did it in way more dangerous itineraries. Think Africa or Latin America.
Actually, a friend finished Canada all the way down to Tierra del Fuego Argentina 2 years ago on bike, and I'd be much more worried for some of the Central and Latin American countries he passed, than e.g. the train trip from Portugal across Europe to Singapore via China. Aside from the currently in effect sanctions against Russia, those are all trivial.
I don't even know what "There's zero people in this world that don't have to avoid certain countries" is supposed to mean. Why would they have to avoid certain countries (aside from not having the guts, or following some state "advisory")? Are they wanted or something?
Still today people have done such trips even on foot with a backpack.
But of course there's always an excuse.
Check out retours.eu for some classy posters from a time when railways ruled along with ocean liners. You really could get to places that we have subsequently deemed to be too war-torn for travel. Even in America you had 'broadway' tracks (four tracks, for slow and fast services in each direction) racing across the country, with competing operators, each with their own 'broadway' tracks.
Interestingly, in the UK, train services have not got quicker, necessarily. There were also the Beeching cuts that decimated the amount of services.
If one power (the Mongols, the Romans, the Inca, the Russians, the Chinese, the British) undisputedly controls some territory, it is easier to travel across it than when there are two, three ... twenty smaller powers along the way.
As for the technical ones, obviously. Cicero could not take a plane to Alexandria.
But when it comes to legal aspects of traveling, crossing boundaries of major entities (the EU, USA) has become a good opportunity to harass and randomly reject people depending on what passport they carry. Even here on HN people now discuss that they started avoiding the US because of unfriendly border checks and a risk of detention.
The EU isn't as harsh as the US, but still, if you are a North African and want to visit the other side of the Mediterranean, you will have to satisfy a lot more bureaucratic conditions than when North Africa was part of the Roman Empire.
Even Australians and Canadians visiting the UK now face more (although not massively more) immigration-related hurdles than when their countries were part of the defunct British Empire.
If you are an American, you may not feel this development, but if you are, say, Syrian or Lebanese who wants to travel (not to mention Gazan), you would be better off being a Roman citizen than wielding the passport of your now-independent country in 2025.
Shout out to 'The man in seat 61', couldn't have done it without it.
https://reustle.org/rtw shows my map around the entire planet. Next time by moto!
It's possible to stay on one train from Vladivostok to Moscow, on the train ride number 001Э (002Э goes the opposite direction): https://www.russianrail.com/train/rossiya
And if anyone goes from Portugal to Laos, they should read this book along the way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Railway_Bazaar
Well ok the first 1/4 of that sentence I left unedited so it suggests I didn't read past the first 2 paragraphs...
This will change when the high speed rail to Bangkok is complete, but we’re not quite there yet.
Hopefully soon. :)
Like many people I've done London to Beijing in the past, and so people will do this in the future too.
IMHO, the best games are realistic but not feasible in real life for examples GTA and PUBG.
Guy from Serbia did it last year.
ChrisMarshallNY•8mo ago
I would get on the Long Island Railroad, in Huntington, and get off the Narita Express, in Shinagawa.
Strangely enough, I would get off the train, before I got on the train.
cyberpunk•8mo ago
ChrisMarshallNY•8mo ago
It wasn’t trains, the whole way. I took the LIRR to JFK Airport, and the Narita Express, from Narita Airport (13-hour flight, in between).
There’s a big timezone jump. You go back, 24 hours, then forward ten or eleven hours, so your watch tells you that you are arriving before you left (but you are still dog-tired).
If you are being precise, your watch might tell you that the whole trip actually took a couple of hours.
Once they started doing direct to Haneda, then you really did arrive “before” you left.