Suzi Soroczak
	An artifact from local history museum in Irkutsk, Russia. St. Petersburg, Russia. Moscow, Russia. Ekaterinburg, Russia. Irkutsk, Russia. Ulan Ude, Russia. Ulan Bataar, Mongolia. Beijing, China. Shanghai, China. Yangshuo, China. HongKong, China.

Amanda and I began planning this trip in March 2002. Having read many old books on the adventure and romanticism of the trip, we began looking for a travel agent in earnest. We located 3 companies who specialize on Trans-Siberian travel, all of which seem on the up and up. Monkey Business is a company based in China and seems to have the east-bound market cornered. Another popular agency, The Russia Experience, has an extensive repetoir of side trips available. In the end I decided to use Intourist, the former Soviet travel agency because the prices were slightly cheaper. The agencies are almost required for atleast some portion of your trip. We had a fabulous agent in Scotland (Garry) who arranged for our visa invitations and made our train and hotel arrangments in Russia (required). Once in China, we took care of our own arrangements and I think we did pretty darn well.

Which ever travel agency you choose, you'll need to get a good book. For many years, the only book for this trip was The Trans-Siberian Handbook, but in 2002 Lonely Planet published their own version titled The Trans-Siberian Railway. We bought both books and they have their strengths and weaknesses, the latter has a great section on the Lake Baikal region. In the end, we took both as a compromise. Our biggest regret was not having good city guides for the major stops we made.

Before you go, you have to arrange for visas. Both Amanda (a citizen of the U.K.) and myself (an American) required visas for Russia and China. However, Mongolia has recently relaxed the rules and Americans don't need visas for stays less than 30 days. Your Russia visa requires an invitation which can be arranged by your travel agent for a small fee ($45). We received our faxed letter (in Russian) about 3 weeks before our trip and immediately went to the Russian embassy in San Francisco. The Russian embassy took our passports and the tourist visas were ready in 10 days. The tourist visa is only good for 30 days and is more restrictive, because you have to have an itinerary and hotel reservations in advance. A business visa is good for 90 days, does not have the same restrictions, but costs more and is harder to arrange. The Chinese tourist visa ($35) only required one week and was easy to arrange at the embassy in San Francisco. I was able to get by with only 4 passport photos, which I took in one of those photo booths. Make sure that you take extra photos with you, in case that you lose your passport or another emergency presents itself along the way.

I also purchased an ISIC card and the travelers insurance plan for 45 days ($175). I took this trip between jobs, and wanted to make sure that I was covered in case of an emergency. As far as discounts for the card, I only managed to get a few in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Otherwise there are no discounts unless you are under 25 years of age.

There are three main trips along the Trans-Siberian railroad: Moscow to Vladivostok, Moscow to Beijing, and Moscow to Beijing via Mongolia. We chose to take the latter, because it would be a shame to miss such an exciting country if we are already headed to China. We also made the decision to do the trip in the west-bound direction, because that fit best with our travel plans.

I kept a daily journal during the trip and if you have some free time, feel free to read it! Don't hesitate to send me any questions or just want to talk about the trip.

Suzi Soroczak, Modern Day Adventurer