Archived:FrontPage

Travel Plan

Current Plan

To occur in March 2011

For the duration of two weeks

To be a Road Trip

To run to Moscow

Points of Interest:

• Belgium: ...
• Germany: ...
• Poland: Nazi bunkers, Gdansk, Wild Wisent, Masurian Lake District
• Belarus: More Wild Wisent, Minsk, Tyranny, Peat deposits
• Kaliningrad Oblast: (The Bridges of) Königsberg, some Pretty Awesome lagoons
• Lithuania: Vilnius?
• Latvia: Riga?
• Russia: Miles and miles of godless communist snow. Also Moscow is pretty cool.

Notable considerations

Trips in Europe are liable to be easier to arrange. Trips elsewhere are liable to require visas, etc. (which depending on the country may be easy or difficult to obtain). However, aranging a visa-equivalent for America is extremely simple (all that is required is to register online). However, car hire will be necessary. Also note that some of Eastern Europe may also require visas. Trips this side of the Iron Curtain are likely to be much nicer to drive in, in terms of road quality, vehicle quality and other road user driving quality.

Proposed Amendments

• Destination to be the USA Proposed: RG Aye: MP Nay: PB,MD,EH,BW

<Rev> I am disappointed to note that this amendment has gained the support of Mr Preece

<Philip> I could probably be persuaded to condone this plan, despite my nay-saying.  This has a variety of possibilities (e.g. East->West, East coast)

• Trip to be be a Train journey from Moscow to Vladivostok Proposed: PB Aye: Nay: BW PB

<Ben> Much as I do condone the Trans-Siberian, I think that travelling it in two weeks would involve lots of sitting on trains and not much of seeing Siberia. 

<Philip> I would probably concur with Ben on this.  I shall therefore nay-say my own suggestion

• Trip to be a Road Trip in the Balkans. Proposed: PB Aye: DS BW EH Nay:

<Ben> Driving issues notwithstanding, this has potential.

<Philip> I think I am including the whole Balkan peninsula in this suggestion, including Greece.  I have certainly visited very little of this area, and I would suspect that to be true of most of the potential attendees.

<Ben> This also has the advantage of potentially featuring a Mediterranean climate, which would be considerably more clement in March than, e.g. Russia.

• A slightly less adventurous approach of a Road Trip around some of Western Europe (perhaps Italy, Switzerland, Austria, etc.). Proposed: PB Aye: DS EH Nay: MD

<Philip> This has the possibility of a latitudinal or longitudinal approach, covering a variety of countries and cities.  It has the disadvantage that a lot of places we might consider are liable to have been visited by a subset of the attendees.

<lmm> This strikes me as a laming out option

<Smith> But also linguistically favourable

<Ed> at the risk of making the obvious joke, i concur with smith (latin is more likely to work also, lol)

• A slightly more adventurous approach of a Road Trip (or Bike Trip!) around the Caucasus (because where else can you visit a different language, ethnicity, alphabet, country and/or disputed territory every day of the week?) Proposed: BW Aye: PB EH Nay:

<Philip> This is liable to require quite a bit of thought, and require multiple visas (Azerbaijan: £55, Georgia: no visa required, Armenia: £30, Russia: £50), but I am interested.

<Smith> I am intrigued by the timescale that would be envisaged for cycling around the Caucasus

<Ed> i concur with philip and note the visae but consider it interesting

<Mike> Well, I object to the "bike" idea, for (hopefully) obvious reasons, and I also note the expense and inconvinientce of getting multiple visas (plus the possibility of getting caught in the crossfire of whatever war Russia gets into next, or getting shot for pointing out that, if Kosovo is worthy of independence, then surely so is Abkhazia...), but otherwise this doesn't seem all that bad an idea....

Attendees

• lmm
• Philip
• Ben
• Smith
• Ed