I believe most trains use cellular data connections for internet connections. I don't expect there to be any out in the Mongolian desert. You'd probably have to bring your own satellite internet...
But at the time (3 years ago) WiFi was a problem which meant it is not a good option to many of us who have the freedom to travel but not without internet access.
The wifi appears to be pretty expensive but maybe it can be worked into a budget. I understand that the limitation at the time appealed to the author, but a lot of teams are very collaborative and a remote worker would need unlimited access.
But it's not passenger rail for good parts of its length, is it?
My minor correction to the article: Wikipedia says that China uses Standard Gauge, this means Russia and Mongolia use wider and not narrower Russian Gauge.
I definitely was thinking of doing this in the near future. I watched a documentary on a guy that took a train ride like this and the scenery was just amazing
> Why would anybody need your stuff? [...] Even if you carry an used laptop it's not a grand desirable item.
That used laptop might be worth a year of disposable income in some parts of the world. And temptations are had to resist when others understand that you can replace it after a single week of working.
> You can use plastic to avoid ever having large sums of cash on you.
No, in most parts of the world you cannot rely on plastic. Heck, even in Uruguay ("the Switzerland of South America") I had to take a bus for 1 hour to get to the next ATM; nobody in my beach side town would accept credit cards. The trick in such parts of the world is to distribute your money evenly into various pockets and bags and to have one dedicated pocket where you keep what you need for the day in small denominations so you don't have to flash an average, monthly, local salary when trying to pay for a roadside snack.
I've never heard of stealing and reselling laptops in Russia, perhaps because used laptop market is very saturated. People have more than they can possibly sell. This might change in a few years of harsh economic downturn but there's no signs yet.
Ten years ago cellphone stealing was a thing, then market saturated and it became thing of past.
I've been to Uruguay and we had no problem using ATMs at Tres Cruces. Of course you need to carry some cash, but $100 equivalent is more than enough.
Argentina, totally different story as you might imagine.
I've spent some time on trains in the equivalent of the 3rd class, and its just not an issue. Most people assume if you were wealthy you'd be on an airplane, so unless you're showing off cameras and laptops and phones (or jewelry?) they'll assume you're a crazy and/or poor hippie and have nothing to steal. Third class type lodging requires prioritization... you don't put your passport and wallet in checked luggage on a rack somewhere, you put your dirty socks in checked luggage and if someone steals your dirty socks you buy new socks at the next stop. Local clothes are often pretty cool to take home anyway. I lost a shirt once in Mexico (or was it stolen?) and it was actually pretty cool. Also if you are in 3rd class and you're sleeping on your wallet and your loot is in a backpack with your leg thru a strap, the entire coach PLUS the attendant has to be in on it if some dude starts going thru your package between your legs or your pockets under your butt while you sleep, so if you don't wake up someone is likely to say something unless you've implemented extreme levels of ugly american protocol. I never carry souvenirs past a post office. The annoyance of using the post office helps eliminate useless clutter too.
If you are in a private room with a kleptomaniac in 2nd class there's really nothing you can do about it other than just hope it doesn't happen. It probably won't. Everyone else is worried you're the kleptomaniac axe murderer, you know.
As long as you don't flash expensive items[1] and work on having a good relationship with your fellow travelers I'd assume you'll be fine. I just did the 12 day trip up the Amazon from the Atlantic coast to Colombia in cattle class (i.e. the whole deck is one giant space for hanging up to 400 hammocks): Nothing got stolen, friends were made even though we did not speak a common language and by the time we got off the boat (12h earlier than scheduled, at midnight, in heavy rain) people who were strangers to each other just a few days ago created ride shares to hotels and poor families were invited to crash on couches or floors in hotel rooms the more affluent had booked.
[1] If you have to, like your camera, just keep it with you all the time.
How are you going to steal something as large as a train? And how will you bring it all the way to China without getting seen? Dispatchers along the route would have to help you.
Looking into it further (it's been a while, never expected to see him back on the front page), it seems he did take the trip but plagiarized most of the images (except the ones of him and his boarding pass) and much of the text/captions.
I .... don't know what to say. It's not as if the text he plagiarized was top-class writing! It's just observations and feelings; it would have been far easier to just write down what he was thinking! What is wrong with these people.
Any account for travelling the transsiberian on first class? How much it cost?
I'd love to live this, but only the good parts (meet other people, from other places, diverse landscapes) and skip the bad ones (bad sleep, scarce food, etc)
Jun 22, Vladivostok - Moscow costs 60k roubles or around $900 first class (СВ), just looked.
Second class (Купе) on less-posh train costs 17k roubles or around $300. I expected it to cost more frankly, given how second class Moscow-SpB sets you back $50 for just one night.
But obviously you would want to change trains / get off at some places in between, which needs more complex calculations.
Other nights from London to St Petersburg were on trains
Tour - £5995
-all trains from St Petersburg to Hong Kong
-all accommodation from St Petersburg to Xi'an
-more than half the meals (apart from when on the train)
-transfers to and from all stations
-all guides and tours
-all visas
Accommodation Hong Kong - £304.96 - Not sure where booked
Spending money - £1640
Flight HK to Melbourne - $HK9076 (about £746)
Travel Insurance - $AUD324 (about £172)
Total: £9753
Polrail.com and realrussia.com are agencies and so added about 25-30% on top of the ticket prices, but the Polish and Russian rail websites aren't in English so didn't have much choice there.
The Polish accommodation was pretty swanky and right next to the stations, there were much cheaper options, but splashed out a bit.
Travel insurance was required for our visas; we had trouble finding anyone to insure us because we weren't finishing where we departed from.
Spending money was under what we budgeted.
The tour was obviously the big expense, doing it ourselves would have been a lot harder, but would have saved a lot of money, but then we'd have to have gone and lined up to get visas whereas they did that for us. Also having someone standing on the platform with a sign with our name on and then being driven to our hotel was pretty cool :)
Unfortunately Derek Low has a colorful history of plagiarism. He often steals other people's photo without credit.
I had a lengthy back-n-forth with numerous authors and photographers about this very post. You'll see that a few of the photos in the beginning of the post now have "Source: _______" beneath them, this was a last ditch effort so that he could keep the post up.
"Unfortunate" is an interesting adjective to use. I think Derek Low is a despicable lowlife who deserves punitive retribution of some kind. What's "unfortunate" is that he continues to get away with this bullshit.
I wonder if it's possible to get some special ticket that lets you make the trip in separate legs at your leisure? Alternatively — I'm assuming it's possible to buy tickets at any of the stations where the train makes a stop — how large would be the financial overhead, compared to buying a ticket for the whole thing up front?
It would be awesome to take stops in interesting places for as long as you want during the journey.
Yes/no - it's complicated, I just did some research into that trip[1]. TL;DR: No, there are no hop-on-and-off tickets, yes, you can buy tickets at any of the stations but you might be out of luck because it's fully booked, leaving you stranded for a few days.
Unfortunately, much of information looks out of date or imprecise. I'm contemplating doing edits.
"Tickets to international destinations (international means Mongolia and China, but not ex-USSR countries) are a completely different story. You can buy them only at dedicated cash desks (международные кассы) at major train stations. You can't buy such tickets online, even if you see the number of free seats and other details on the website. Prices do not depend on the season. They are calculated in Swiss Francs."
WUT? Maybe it was indeed so at some point of time but now it's news from Mars.
I grew up on Soviet trains and have traveled extensively in the region. Let me tell you the secret to the Russian railroad system: do not buy tickets from agencies or even from the official ticket office.
The stewardess for each train car is in charge of checking tickets, gets paid next to nothing, and relies on gray market transactions to make a living. Walk through the train until you find a clean car that you like and talk to the stewardess directly. Arrange your destination an the price with the her (this is true if you have a ticket or not). For a small extra fee you can buy out all four seats in the second class coupe or cabin. The price is entirely negotiable.
Understand that your presence on the train without taking care of the stewardess is a loss of income. Do not be surprised about gruff treatment. Once you pay her directly expect a much friendlier transaction. Arrange everything with your host: meals, money exchange, etc. Compensate generously and you will have an amazing time.
Funny to see this guy complain about platzkart train car. I've been doing 24h+ trips like this regularly before travelling by air became more convenient and affordable.
Also the last photo of the bridge is by Prokudin-Gorskii from early 20th century. It doesn't even look like this anymore.
52 comments
[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] threadno these trains don't.
But some amtrak's in america do have wifi.
http://tynan.com/cruisework
But at the time (3 years ago) WiFi was a problem which meant it is not a good option to many of us who have the freedom to travel but not without internet access.
However you can use cellular in other places. Check 3G/LTE availability maps:
https://beeline.ru/customers/beeline-on-map/ http://www.corp.mts.ru/help/mts/coverage/ http://megafon.ru/internet/4g/
My minor correction to the article: Wikipedia says that China uses Standard Gauge, this means Russia and Mongolia use wider and not narrower Russian Gauge.
http://basementgeographer.com/the-longest-train-ride-in-the-...
You can use plastic to avoid ever having large sums of cash on you.
That used laptop might be worth a year of disposable income in some parts of the world. And temptations are had to resist when others understand that you can replace it after a single week of working.
> You can use plastic to avoid ever having large sums of cash on you.
No, in most parts of the world you cannot rely on plastic. Heck, even in Uruguay ("the Switzerland of South America") I had to take a bus for 1 hour to get to the next ATM; nobody in my beach side town would accept credit cards. The trick in such parts of the world is to distribute your money evenly into various pockets and bags and to have one dedicated pocket where you keep what you need for the day in small denominations so you don't have to flash an average, monthly, local salary when trying to pay for a roadside snack.
Ten years ago cellphone stealing was a thing, then market saturated and it became thing of past.
I've been to Uruguay and we had no problem using ATMs at Tres Cruces. Of course you need to carry some cash, but $100 equivalent is more than enough. Argentina, totally different story as you might imagine.
I've spent some time on trains in the equivalent of the 3rd class, and its just not an issue. Most people assume if you were wealthy you'd be on an airplane, so unless you're showing off cameras and laptops and phones (or jewelry?) they'll assume you're a crazy and/or poor hippie and have nothing to steal. Third class type lodging requires prioritization... you don't put your passport and wallet in checked luggage on a rack somewhere, you put your dirty socks in checked luggage and if someone steals your dirty socks you buy new socks at the next stop. Local clothes are often pretty cool to take home anyway. I lost a shirt once in Mexico (or was it stolen?) and it was actually pretty cool. Also if you are in 3rd class and you're sleeping on your wallet and your loot is in a backpack with your leg thru a strap, the entire coach PLUS the attendant has to be in on it if some dude starts going thru your package between your legs or your pockets under your butt while you sleep, so if you don't wake up someone is likely to say something unless you've implemented extreme levels of ugly american protocol. I never carry souvenirs past a post office. The annoyance of using the post office helps eliminate useless clutter too.
If you are in a private room with a kleptomaniac in 2nd class there's really nothing you can do about it other than just hope it doesn't happen. It probably won't. Everyone else is worried you're the kleptomaniac axe murderer, you know.
[1] If you have to, like your camera, just keep it with you all the time.
http://dereklow.co/what-its-like-to-fly-the-23000-singapore-...
edit: i learned that most of this is plagiarized. it's baffling that he would take such a trip and yet still plagiarize a bunch of the content.
http://andystravelblog.boardingarea.com/2014/10/02/singapore...
I'd love to live this, but only the good parts (meet other people, from other places, diverse landscapes) and skip the bad ones (bad sleep, scarce food, etc)
Second class (Купе) on less-posh train costs 17k roubles or around $300. I expected it to cost more frankly, given how second class Moscow-SpB sets you back $50 for just one night.
But obviously you would want to change trains / get off at some places in between, which needs more complex calculations.
All in, it was just under £10k
Trains London to St Petersburg
London to Brussels - £100 Eurostar Brussels to Cologne - 58 Euro - Bahn.de (about £45) Koln to Prague - 138 Euro - Bahn.de (about £109) Prague to Krakow (three trains) - 488PLN - Polrail.com (about £92) Krakow to Warsaw - 140PLN - Polrail.com (about £26) Warsaw to Minsk - 698PLN - Polrail.com (about £132) Minsk to St Petersburg - £284.72 - realrussia.com
Accommodation Krakow - £68.22 lastminute.com Accommodation Warsaw - £38.76 lastminute.com
Other nights from London to St Petersburg were on trains
Tour - £5995 -all trains from St Petersburg to Hong Kong -all accommodation from St Petersburg to Xi'an -more than half the meals (apart from when on the train) -transfers to and from all stations -all guides and tours -all visas
Accommodation Hong Kong - £304.96 - Not sure where booked
Spending money - £1640
Flight HK to Melbourne - $HK9076 (about £746) Travel Insurance - $AUD324 (about £172)
Total: £9753
Polrail.com and realrussia.com are agencies and so added about 25-30% on top of the ticket prices, but the Polish and Russian rail websites aren't in English so didn't have much choice there. The Polish accommodation was pretty swanky and right next to the stations, there were much cheaper options, but splashed out a bit. Travel insurance was required for our visas; we had trouble finding anyone to insure us because we weren't finishing where we departed from. Spending money was under what we budgeted. The tour was obviously the big expense, doing it ourselves would have been a lot harder, but would have saved a lot of money, but then we'd have to have gone and lined up to get visas whereas they did that for us. Also having someone standing on the platform with a sign with our name on and then being driven to our hotel was pretty cool :)
You can check prices and book tickets online without fees.
http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/?m=1
I had a lengthy back-n-forth with numerous authors and photographers about this very post. You'll see that a few of the photos in the beginning of the post now have "Source: _______" beneath them, this was a last ditch effort so that he could keep the post up.
See the HN discussion last time a Derek Low post was submitted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10258972
It would be awesome to take stops in interesting places for as long as you want during the journey.
[1] https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway#Ticket...
"Tickets to international destinations (international means Mongolia and China, but not ex-USSR countries) are a completely different story. You can buy them only at dedicated cash desks (международные кассы) at major train stations. You can't buy such tickets online, even if you see the number of free seats and other details on the website. Prices do not depend on the season. They are calculated in Swiss Francs."
WUT? Maybe it was indeed so at some point of time but now it's news from Mars.
The stewardess for each train car is in charge of checking tickets, gets paid next to nothing, and relies on gray market transactions to make a living. Walk through the train until you find a clean car that you like and talk to the stewardess directly. Arrange your destination an the price with the her (this is true if you have a ticket or not). For a small extra fee you can buy out all four seats in the second class coupe or cabin. The price is entirely negotiable.
Understand that your presence on the train without taking care of the stewardess is a loss of income. Do not be surprised about gruff treatment. Once you pay her directly expect a much friendlier transaction. Arrange everything with your host: meals, money exchange, etc. Compensate generously and you will have an amazing time.
Also the last photo of the bridge is by Prokudin-Gorskii from early 20th century. It doesn't even look like this anymore.