Well, 4.5 months to departure, and our next major milestone is sending our visa applications to The Visa Machine in the UK. All up, we needed 7 visas for Turkey, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia, which amounted to a small mountain of paperwork, and plenty of late nights and heartache at just how much we needed to have already planned just to submit the paperwork. On the upside, we now have a firm route plan with all border crossing locations identified, predicted entry dates for all countries, proposed hotels referenced and travel insurance and International Driving Permits purchased.
While friendly Kyrgyzstan didn’t require a visa at all, Russia asked us for details on every country we’ve ever travelled to, full employment and education history with references and also asked if we were experts in firearms, explosives or “nuclear matters”. Maybe they’re going to offer us jobs!
Conveniently we also happened to choose to travel through Iran, the one country where we will require a Carnet de Passage (permission to temporarily import goods) for the car. This will add an unexpected AUD $2000 to the budget, of which AUD $1150 is refundable. It also means we need to have the car purchased 6 weeks prior to departure, so it looks like we’ll calling in some early favours from friends in the UK to make sure it’s ready in time!
Here’s just some of the paperwork we’ve had to submit already (x3)!
While friendly Kyrgyzstan didn’t require a visa at all, Russia asked us for details on every country we’ve ever travelled to, full employment and education history with references and also asked if we were experts in firearms, explosives or “nuclear matters”. Maybe they’re going to offer us jobs!
Conveniently we also happened to choose to travel through Iran, the one country where we will require a Carnet de Passage (permission to temporarily import goods) for the car. This will add an unexpected AUD $2000 to the budget, of which AUD $1150 is refundable. It also means we need to have the car purchased 6 weeks prior to departure, so it looks like we’ll calling in some early favours from friends in the UK to make sure it’s ready in time!
Here’s just some of the paperwork we’ve had to submit already (x3)!
Now we wait with bated breath to see if they get approved in time!