Route

Roadtrip – London 2 Jammu

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Yes you read it absolutely right, a road-trip from London (UK) to Jammu (India). And no, we are not the first ones to do it. We (me and my wife) actually got inspired by one another Indian couple who did it via Russia, and another Indian who did it all alone via Pakistan .

We started planning about it mid 2013. To give a little background, i am a Software Professional who loves to drive/ride and my wife is a Travel Consultant who loves to travel. So she popped me this question one fine day if we can do a cross country, i loved the idea but had to run it through our mother. Once she agreed, there was no looking back.

We planned to get all formalities done by end of August 2014, as our flag off date was 6th September 2014. Internet helped us in gathering as much information as possible to conceive this trip and this is an effort to help some other souls who might also want to traverse the same adventure.

We have created a Facebook Page where we are publishing our experiences and information on all preparation that needs to be done in addition to the website that we have created dedicated to this trip.

The countries we passed through are:

UK > France > Belgium > Luxembourg > Germany > Austria > Switzerland > Italy > Czech Republic > Slovakia > Hungary > Croatia > Bosnia & Herzegovina > Montenegro > Albania > Serbia > Macedonia > Greece > Turkey > Russia > Turkmenistan > Uzbekistan > Kazakhstan > Iran > India

Information on what visas are required for Indian Passport & UK Passport can be found here (List of Visas Required) and important places that are not supposed to be missed once in that country.

We would be more than happy to answer any question that anyone might have that may assist them in any such similar planning.

After putting together lot of research, own experiences and gut feeling our choice of vehicle came down to the following two:

  1. Range Rover
  2. Land Cruiser

And finally gave in to what our heart said (i have a gut feeling that i am going to get a lot of negative feedback on this) and boy were we glad we made this decision, yes we went for Range Rover HSE 2003 TD6.

Since we were doing this Roadtrip we wanted to associate ourselves with a cause as well, as we wanted to use this opportunity to contribute for the well being of lesser fortunate. So we partnered with two charities:

  1. Pratham UK – They support child education for the poor in India.
  2. YouWeCan – It is a cancer awareness foundation started by our own Yuvraj Singh.

We are not aware on how much we were able to collect for YouWeCan (as donations went directly to their charity page), but for Pratham UK we were able to collect GBP 1500.00 with help from all you great souls out there 🙂

Also, we had plans to connect with Kapil fans and we were carrying hundreds of Kapil signed T-Shirts with us to be distributed among Kapil’s fans.

We named our 3rd partner in crime as “Dhanno” (Sholey fame) and this is how she looked:

Dhanno_LS Dhanno_RS

Finally the day arrived, which both me and Aarti had dreamed off. After bidding farewell to our beloved friends, we left for this amazing and wondrous journey. A journey that would change our outlook towards the world and fellow human beings for good.

We are logging all of the trip as below:



There are 5 comments

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  1. zoe

    This is such a great idea 🙂 I’ve heard of bicycle tours, people who hitchhike and of course people who road trip within a country, but driving on such a vast scale and for such a good cause I have not heard of before! Kutos to you, and thanks for inspiring me to keep going on my own journey

  2. shoeb masood

    Akhil & aarti please you can give technicla inputs of how to get permission for entring a vehicle ( indain Origin ) in the various countries where you had travelled through .

  3. Akhil Pathania

    Hi Shoeb,

    It would actually depend on which country/ies you wish to enter?
    1. Many countries accept “Carnet-De-Passage”, it is a visa kinda document for vehicles.
    2. China has its own mechanism and charges heavy duty on vehicles entering China, they wont even recognize international license.
    3. You are free to cross borders within Europe provided you have valid motor insurance.

    Let us know if you have any other questions 🙂

    Akhil


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