Strictness and Sojourn

Walking Every Inch: My Strict Hiking Guidelines

According to my current planning, the big hike will start in the last week of February 2025 – there are barely 3 months left until the start – time for a little update.

As you know, I would like to test in a self-experiment whether it is possible to walk the furthest way in Eurasia, namely from Cape Sao Vicente in Portugal to Singapore. And this under the strictest aspects:

1. Every meter should be walked, so no use of means of transport

2. No interruption by means of transport, neither a journey home by airplane nor the use of a bicycle for shopping.

3. Carrying the required luggage myself, also abstaining from a towed or pushed cart

Theoretically, it is possible to walk every meter myself because start and end are on the same landmass. In practice, however, it is virtually impossible, as we will see. For example, there are bridges over rivers that are not legally crossable on foot. On some rivers only ferries run. Some hiking trails also officially need that certain bodies of water are crossed by boat. In such cases, it would be completely disproportionate to make a few 100 km detour to avoid a few 100 m boat ride.

In a second scenario, after weeks of loneliness, a nice family invites me to dinner with an overnight stay in the evening. However, their place of residence is 20 km to the side of my route. Should I stubbornly refuse? Or join them in their car under the condition that they bring me back the next morning?

Navigating Visa Challenges in Eurasia

In the following, I have thought about my sojourn in the individual countries. First of all, I looked at where I can enter without a visa:

With the exception of Iran and Turkmenistan, things are actually looking quite good. Furthermore, it is not impossible to get certain visa on the way. But the problem is that it takes me a very long time to hike through some countries. So, let’s take a look at how many days of stay I can get in the affected countries at their borders (or with an e-visa):

That looks quite good – apart from Turkmenistan. But if I calculate how many kilometers I would have to walk per day to legally hike through the respective countries, the following picture emerges:

In Turkmenistan and China I would have to walk over 100 km/day, which is of course impossible. Therefore, I have made further clarifications where an extension of my stay would be possible. For Turkmenistan, a travel agency promised me a stay of 20 days (instead of 5 days transit visa), whereby they would probably have to accompany me(!) Another travel agency also promised me 90 days for Iran. For Kazakhstan, I could divide the long stay into two parts by crossing the border into neighboring China. However, no one can tell me how long I would have to stay abroad to get another 30 days of stay. In Mongolia, the stay can be increased from 30 to 60 days by sending in certain documents to their immigration department.

Since I would have to walk less than 40 km per day everywhere, the route would be doable in my eyes. Only China remains a problem. The solution could be to apply for a family visit visa of 90 days.  If that doesn’t work, the solution would be to leave the country briefly after every 30 days.

We’ll see.