The Trans-Siberian Network

(Trans-Siberian, Trans-Mongolian, and Trans-Manchurian Railways).  

Overview: 

The jew­el of the Tsars, the Trans-Siber­ian, Trans-Mon­go­lian & Trans-Manchuri­an are the com­bi­na­tion of three incred­i­ble train net­works that make up one of the world’s most pre­mier – and last remain­ing – epic adven­tures — a jour­ney by rail across more than a third of the world. Stretch­ing from Moscow to Bei­jing via Mon­go­lia these great net­works take trav­ellers into the heart and high­lights of Eura­sia – where they will encounter incred­i­ble scenery, embark on unique adven­tures, expe­ri­ence diverse cul­tures, and enjoy a tru­ly life-chang­ing expe­ri­ence, as they ride the tracks on this stun­ning won­der of the world.   

Com­mon­ly referred to as the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work, com­bined the three train lines cross more than 20,000 kilo­me­tres of rail tracks – with the hun­dreds of stops avail­able across the inter­chang­ing lines giv­ing trav­ellers the chance to define the scope, scale, and dura­tion of their jour­ney – with their being a range of pas­sen­ger com­fort lev­els and expe­ri­ences avail­able to suit every bud­get.  

How­ev­er, giv­en the pop­u­lar­i­ty, beau­ty and trav­el­ling expe­ri­ences avail­able from the inter­con­nec­tiv­i­ty of the lines, three main explo­ration routes have emerged to tra­verse the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work. With these three routes giv­ing trav­ellers the chance to take in the incred­i­ble high­lights of this stun­ning region, includ­ing explor­ing the his­toric and bustling cap­i­tals of Moscow, Bei­jing and Ulaan­baatar, as well as mar­vel at incred­i­ble scenic vil­lages, explore true wilder­ness in the Russ­ian and Siber­ian forests and the Mon­go­lian Steppe, be awe-struck at tow­er­ing snow-capped moun­tains and tra­verse and explore the stun­ning glacial turquoise waters of lake Baikal; 

Route 1: The Trans Siber­ian & Trans-Mon­go­lian Route:  The clas­sic adven­tur­ist route – and the one that see’s you trav­el the full length of the Trans-Siber­ian net­work – tak­ing you from Rus­sia the Russ­ian Cap­i­tal of Moscow – to Vladi­vos­tok, before sync­ing up with the Trans-Mon­go­lian Route and south towards the Mon­go­lian cap­i­tal of Ulaan­baatar then onwards to Bei­jing – where your epic adven­ture ends.  

Pos­si­ble to do the route from Bei­jing to Moscow (although we wouldn’t rec­om­mend it) this route will take you across more than 10,000 kilo­me­tres of incred­i­ble train line and will require intense plan­ning on bud­gets, time – at least 2 weeks, visas, stop offs, accom­mo­da­tion, and food, but for those who ven­ture on this route (which is some­thing we’d tru­ly rec­om­mend from our own expe­ri­ence) you’ll get to expe­ri­ence the best of Eura­sia as you trav­el across a third of the world on a life-chang­ing trip accom­pa­nied by and explor­ing some of the worlds great­est won­ders and scenery.  

Route 2: The Trans-Manchuria / Trans-Siber­ian: (Both Ways:) As with Route 1, the Trans-Manchuria takes trav­ellers on a stun­ning jour­ney across the absolute best of Russ­ian scenery, across the plains of Siberia and into the heart of Chi­na and the cap­i­tal Bei­jing. A route again trav­e­lable in any order, this is a great option for those who want to cross and expe­ri­ence the won­der of the Trans-Siber­ian net­work but who don’t have either the time, paper­work or desire to explore Mon­go­lia.  

A route than can be trav­eled in just over 10 days (with min­i­mal stops) or that can be enjoyed at leisure for a full explo­ration, trav­ellers will again need to account for two coun­try visas and the chal­lenge of plan­ning, accom­mo­da­tion, bud­gets and stop-offs before set­ting off – but for those who take on this route, despite the absence of Mon­go­lia, you’ll be in for an incred­i­ble jour­ney that cross­es the tow­er­ing snow-capped peaks of the Ural moun­tains, the won­ders of Lake Baikal and get to chance to explore the many won­ders that await you in Bei­jing.  

Route 3: The Trans-Siber­ian Route: The offi­cial Trans-Siber­ian rail­way line, the final most com­mon route, is where this incred­i­ble won­der start­ed, with the Moscow to Vladi­vos­tok route – which stretch­es across more than 9,000 kilo­me­tres of track – span­ning almost the entire­ty of Rus­sia and tak­ing trav­ellers on an epic adven­ture over stun­ning moun­tains, through the plains of Rus­sia and deep into Siberia – as you explore a fas­ci­nat­ing, cul­tur­al­ly rich and the deep his­to­ry of this incred­i­ble coun­try on an epic jour­ney.  

The orig­i­nal Trans-Siber­ian expe­ri­ence, the rail-net­work across Rus­sia acts both as a start­ing point for most Trans-Siber­ian jour­neys as well as a com­muter line for every-day Rus­sians, with this rail jour­ney – which spans two con­ti­nents and sev­en time zones – accom­plished in as lit­tle as 7 days – or for those who stop off between 10 – 14 days, on an incred­i­ble and unique insight into the beau­ty of Rus­sia.  

Although there’s three main routes to tra­verse the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work – with the stop-offs and dura­tion at the dis­cre­tion and deci­sion of the trav­eller – the most com­mon route across this won­der see’s trav­ellers start in Moscow and end in one of Vladi­vos­tok, Bei­jing or Ulaan­baatar. Because of this every trav­eller will expe­ri­ence the thrill of rid­ing on the world’s longest rail­way of the orig­i­nal Trans-Siber­ian (route 3 above) at the begin­ning or end of their jour­ney – with it being this net­work that start­ed the Trans-Siber­ian rail­way evo­lu­tion that would even­tu­al­ly grow to include the Trans- Mon­go­lian and Manchuria line that make up the epic jour­ney and this stun­ning won­der of the world.  

Tak­ing trav­ellers across 87 cities in Rus­sia – as well as 16 major rivers and 15 enchant­i­ng tun­nels, the orig­i­nal Trans-Siber­ian net­work is a feat not only due to its archi­tec­tur­al beau­ty and sheer size, but also due its sym­bol­ism and the cre­ation accom­plish­ment which it rep­re­sents. Offi­cial­ly opened in 1917, the rail­way line stretch­ing from Moscow to Vladi­vos­tok began con­struc­tion in May of 1891, under the direct super­vi­sion of Tsar Alexan­der III and the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment, and was orig­i­nal­ly con­struct­ed for the pur­pose of trade between Rus­sia and Chi­na, fol­low­ing the Russ­ian occu­pa­tion of the UK, Amer­i­ca and Japan dur­ing the 19th cen­tu­ry.  

His­to­ry: Tak­ing 26 years to com­plete, the Trans-Siber­ian net­work was com­plet­ed in stages – reach­ing the city of Omsk in 1894, Irk­tusk (on Lake Baikal) in 1898, and Vladi­vos­tok in 1901, with the orig­i­nal jour­ney zig-zag­ging into Chi­na and back up into Vladi­vos­tok to account for the sheer size and ice on Lake Baikal – with it then tak­ing an extra ten years before a line around the lake was com­plet­ed and the full jour­ney could be under­tak­en and the Trans-Siber­ian net­work as we know it today took shape.  

Com­plet­ed under immense­ly chal­leng­ing con­di­tions, account for the Russ­ian win­ter, carv­ing through the Ural Moun­tains, and cross­ing large rivers and lakes – includ­ing the fear­some Lake Baikal, what orig­i­nal­ly began as an eco­nom­ic and trade project turned into a source of great price and a true mar­vel as the Trans-Siber­ian rail net­work become a sym­bol of Russ­ian inge­nu­ity and accom­plish­ment – that still stands today as both a tourist sym­bol and icon­ic won­der.  

With the com­ple­tion of the Trans-Mon­go­lian line into Ulaan­baatar in 1949 after nine years of con­struc­tion, and the Trans-Manchuria line – which built on the ini­tial line from the start of the cen­tu­ry across Lake Baikal open­ing in 1956, the Trans-Siber­ian net­work as we know it today offi­cial­ly opened, and over the last sev­en­ty years it has served as one of the great trav­el routes across Eura­sia – and one of the great won­ders of the world.  

Explore & the jour­ney: Along­side the beau­ty and stops along the way, a jour­ney across these tracks has also become a place of con­tem­pla­tion and thought – which adds to the life- chang­ing nature of this jour­ney. This is thanks in part to the sheer dura­tion of time it takes to trav­el across the coun­tries and due to the aver­age speed of trains upon the tracks reach­ing 65 kilo­me­tres an hour, which makes for a slow but beau­ti­ful jour­ney.  

Still, while no one jour­ney is the same, the speed of the trains com­bined with the many sites and poten­tial stop offs and route vari­a­tions on the way means that immense plan­ning is required before set­ting off, with any jour­ney across the Trans-Siber­ian net­work – and the poten­tial to take either the Trans-Manchuri­an or Trans-Mon­go­lian route giv­ing trav­ellers the oppor­tu­ni­ty to explore mul­ti­ple incred­i­ble sights, scenery and enjoy some thrilling expe­ri­ences.  

For most trav­ellers this expe­ri­ence will begin before set­ting foot on the Trans-Siber­ian rail­way in the base city of the Russ­ian cap­i­tal of Moscow. It’s with­in Moscow that you can not only explore a fel­low won­der of the world in the Red square in the Kremin, but also spend a few days soak­ing in the heart of ‘Russia’s Soul’ and the his­to­ry, the­atre and cul­ture of this fas­ci­nat­ing coun­try.  

For those with a spare day, we’d rec­om­mend get­ting your first taste of the Russ­ian train expe­ri­ence by head­ing north to check out the stun­ning archi­tec­ture, palaces, muse­ums and art of Russia’s sec­ond city. For those lucky enough to be trav­el­ling dur­ing sum­mer do be sure to head for a per­for­mance at either the Mari­in­sky The­atre or one of the world’s great fes­ti­vals in the white night’s fes­ti­val – a stun­ning fire­work and sail cel­e­bra­tion.  

Hav­ing explored the heart of Rus­sia, you’ll then be ready to set off on the epic jour­ney from Moscow along the Trans-Siber­ian expe­ri­ence. Regard­less of the line you opt to take and des­ti­na­tion, your jour­ney will begin along the clas­sic Trans-Siber­ian line, and we’d rec­om­mend mak­ing time to explore the great city of Kazan as a first stop detour. 

Twinned on either side by the mighty and gor­geous rivers of Kazana­ka and Vol­ga, Kazan is a tru­ly remark­able and cul­tur­al­ly rich city, with the mul­ti-cul­tur­al blend of diverse reli­gious mon­u­ments result­ing in a series of tru­ly impres­sive citadels, mosques and cathe­drals, which any trav­eller would be like­ly to explore.  

For those who are fas­ci­nat­ed by Russ­ian his­to­ry – and par­tic­u­lar­ly the down­fall of the Tsars, after an explo­ration around Kazan, the city of Yeka­ter­in­burg – where the Tsars met their grue­some end makes for a great spot, with those immune to gory details able to even trace the blood marks and exe­cu­tion spots of the Tsars them­selves – in a fas­ci­nat­ing explo­ration of the his­to­ry of Rus­sia.  

Back on the Trans-Siber­ian and you’ll now be treat­ed to stun­ning views of the Ural Moun­tains and the plains of Rus­sia as you jour­ney extends, with those with more time or keen on moun­tain hik­ing able to stop off at the city of Perm and get up close to these almost 2,000 metre tall moun­tains for some hik­ing, ski­ing or even horse rid­ing, with the town of Perm being one of the most scenic and pic­turesque stops across the whole of your trans-Siber­ian expe­ri­ence – as well as being the offi­cial moun­tain range that sper­ates Europe from Asia.  

While moun­tain lovers can also stop at the town of Barunal to explore the Altai Moun­tains, most jour­neys across the trans-Siber­ian opt to take in this stun­ning moun­tain range from the train – with the views from the win­dows, which stretch across not just the tow­er­ing moun­tains, but also lush green steppe, rolling rivers and sparkling lakes mark­ing a per­fect pre­lude as the Trans-Siber­ian line rolls towards the stun­ning glacial lake of Baikal.  

Known as the pearl of Siberia, Lake Baikal is the deep­est, ancient and most mys­te­ri­ous fresh­wa­ter lake in the world – and is one of the most stun­ning spots not just across the Trans-Siber­ian but in the world. With this charm­ing, turquoise lake being explorable in the sum­mer by kayak, boat and scu­ba div­ing – and dur­ing the freez­ing win­ter – lend­ing itself to snow­mo­bil­ing, sled­ding and ski­ing.  

Acces­si­ble through the trans-Siber­ian stop of Irkut­sk – a tru­ly charm­ing town where you’ll find a range of access to the lake, Baikal is one of the true jew­els of Lake Baikal, and we’d rec­om­mend every trav­eller – regard­less of their route bud­gets at least a cou­ple of days to explore this stun­ning won­der. From Lake Baikal, the next best city on the route is that of Ulan Ude – which lends itself per­fect­ly to a half-day trip.  

Home to the icon­ic Lenin bust – that is sim­ply huge and a true sym­bol of Rus­sia – and a great pho­to spot, Ulan-Ude is also home to one of the hid­den gems of Rus­sia the Bud­dhist monastery of Ivol­gin­sky Dat­san – an incred­i­bly charm­ing monastery that sits against a back­drop of stun­ning moun­tains that stands as a post Russ­ian rev­o­lu­tion sym­bol of the free­dom of Rus­sia.  

A charm­ing town – and home to one of the best pizze­rias across Rus­sia, Ulan Ude also serves as the fork in the road for trav­ellers rid­ing the Trans-Siber­ian net­work – with it being here that we’d rec­om­mend all trav­ellers vis­it before decid­ing if they wish to opt to fin­ish the whole trans-Siber­ian line, or  sync up with the trans-Mon­go­lian or Trans-Manchuri­an line.  

For those con­tin­u­ing with the trans-Siber­ian line, the next stop will be the end of the line of Vladi­vos­tok – where you can make us of the sync up to anoth­er line if required. Vladi­vos­tok itself is a clas­sic indus­tri­al town set against the ocean, where you’ll find charm­ing sea­side mixed with the com­forts of a big town. While not com­pa­ra­ble to Moscow or St Peters­burg, it does offer great access to the Kam­chat­ka Penin­su­la – where explor­ers can take in the brown bears in the wild, or for those keen on explor­ing more of Asia, Vladi­vos­tok serves as a great place to grab a fer­ry towards South Korea in the sum­mer­time and con­tin­ue your adven­ture.  

For those tak­ing on Route 1 above and con­tin­u­ing with the clas­sic Trans-Siber­ian adven­ture, from Ulan Ude, we’d rec­om­mend head­ing south into the Mon­go­lian cap­i­tal of Ulaan­baatar on the Trans-Mon­go­lian line – a great mod­ern city awash with fas­ci­nat­ing cul­ture and access to some of the great wilder­ness and adven­tures on the plan­et.  

Home to the icon­ic Mon­go­lian Steppe and vast deserts, the approach to Ulaan­baatar offers a series of incred­i­ble breath-tak­ing views, and for those lucky enough to have a lit­tle time ot hand, it’s in Ulaan­baatar that you can ven­ture fur­ther out towards the Gobi Desert, the Gorkhi-Terelj Nation­al Park or the Steppe for some true Mon­go­lian Adven­tures on horse­back and in clas­sic Genghis Khan style – to cre­ate stun­ning mem­o­ries.  

While Ulaan­baatar itself is a city that has come to embrace the moder­ni­ty of life, and has thank­ful­ly seen high lev­els of air pol­lu­tion dis­perse, it’s also the best place across Mon­go­lia to take in one of the world’s tru­ly great fes­ti­vals – the Naadam Fes­ti­val, that takes place every July and dis­plays the best of Mon­go­lian cul­tures, per­for­mances and lifestyle, that tru­ly dis­plays the best of this fas­ci­nat­ing coun­try.  

Trav­el­ling on from Ulaan­baatar, of for those who opt to head from either Ulan-Ude or Vladi­vos­tok, the com­mon final stop on the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work jour­ney is the mod­ern cap­i­tal of Chi­na, Bei­jing. A city rich in immense cul­ture – and with access to the stun­ning won­der of the Great wall of Chi­na, and the For­bid­den city, Bei­jing rep­re­sents a stun­ning finale to any jour­ney across the Trans-Siber­ian – with trav­ellers able to relax and reflect on their incred­i­ble adven­ture and indulge in explor­ing the rich muse­ums, tem­ples, palaces and build­ings of this incred­i­ble city.  

A tru­ly life-chang­ing jour­ney, trav­el­ling across some of the high­lights of Eura­sia and a third of the world on this stun­ning rail net­work is an expe­ri­ence like no oth­er. With this epic adven­ture tak­ing you not only past and through some of the great forests, lakes, plains and scenery like nowhere else on the earth — and giv­ing explor­ers the chance to explore and expe­ri­ence, incred­i­ble cities, fes­ti­vals cul­ture and his­to­ry – but also being a life-chang­ing and life-growth expe­ri­ence, which makes a jour­ney and adven­ture across the archi­tec­tur­al feat and tru­ly stun­ning Trans-Siber­ian net­work a true won­der of the world.  

Where:  

Stretch­ing across a third of the world the Trans-Siber­ian net­work cross­es two con­ti­nents, three coun­tries and more than 10 time zones – for an epic jour­ney across some of the most stun­ning scenery and land­scapes on the plan­et, and home to some of the adren­a­line pump­ing and life-chang­ing expe­ri­ences.  

While being just part of a Goliath Russ­ian Rail Net­work, which poten­tial­ly gives trav­ellers the option to extend their jour­ney across Europe – through the Euro rail – and into Asia from con­nec­tions and fer­ry rides in the Asian part of their arrival or depar­ture route, the clas­sic trav­eller explo­ration is made up of three routes, which can be trav­elled in either direc­tion.  

These three routes include sole­ly trav­el­ling on the Trans-Siber­ian line that whose ter­mi­ni sta­tions include Moscow and Vladi­vos­tok, the Trans-Mon­go­lian Lines who’s stops include Moscow, Bei­jing and Ulaan­baatar in Mon­go­lia, and the Trans-Manchuria Line, who’s final sta­tion is Bei­jing.  

Yet, while the ter­mi­ni sta­tions on the three routes of the Trans-Siber­ian net­work are fixed, what is not is the jour­ney – with every trav­eller hav­ing the option to define the scope, scale and dura­tion of their explo­ration. Because of this trav­ellers can opt not only for any of the three main routes – but also stop-off on their jour­ney to explore the best of Siberia and Lake Baikal at Irkut­sk, explore the tow­er­ing Ural moun­tains at Perm, and explore the best of Russ­ian his­to­ry and cul­ture at the fas­ci­nat­ing towns of Omsk, Novosi­birsk or even St Peters­burg, on a jour­ney that is tru­ly at the dis­cre­tion and bud­get, time and sched­ule of the trav­eller.  

In fact, with the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work and the three routes stretch­ing over more than 12,000 kilo­me­tres of incred­i­ble trek, which pass­es and affords spec­tac­u­lar views of moun­tains, rivers and mead­ows, it’s pos­si­ble to get tru­ly lost in the sheer beau­ty and wild­ness that a jour­ney on the Trans-Siber­ian net­work affords.  

With the first steps of this epic adven­ture, that will take you to the end of the world, begin­ning with decid­ing on how you’ll reach and get to the start of the Trans-Siber­ian net­work as you set off on a life-chang­ing adven­ture.  

Getting There: 

The Start of an epic jour­ney, get­ting to the board­ing sta­tion of the Trans-Siber­ian net­work can be an adven­ture in itself, with explor­ers hav­ing to decide – and thor­ough­ly plan – not only their route along the Trans-Siber­ian before set­ting off, but decide on which of the three main board­ing / ter­mi­ni sta­tions – Moscow, Vladi­vos­tok or Bei­jing they wish to depart from – and how they wish to get there.  

So, to begin the process of arriv­ing at the start of the Trans-Siber­ian net­work, explor­ers will first need to decide which of the three routes they are trav­el­ling on, the clas­sic explor­er route of the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work expe­ri­ence (Moscow to Bei­jing via Ulaan­baatar or vice ver­sa), the Manchuri­an-expe­ri­ence (Moscow to Bei­jing or vice Ver­sa) or the orig­i­nal expe­ri­ence (Moscow to Vladi­vos­tok or vice ver­sa.).  

With this decid­ed – and with visas, bud­get, itin­er­aries – and plen­ty of snacks for the road ahead in hand, your jour­ney on the Trans-Siber­ian express can begin.  

Departing from Beijing: 

Start­ing for those trav­el­ling east to west – and arguably the option that requires the least plan­ning and allows for a direct arrival of trav­el­ling the Trans-Siber­ian Express – and head­ing east to west, depart­ing from the cul­tur­al and bustling heart of Chi­na Bei­jing is a fan­tas­tic and eas­i­ly reached way to begin your jour­ney.  

The most pop­u­lar option for those based in Asia who are seek­ing to return to Europe the Ter­mi­ni and depart­ing sta­tion for the Trans-Siber­ian net­work in Bei­jing is the eas­i­ly named Bei­jing Rail­way sta­tion that is reached from across Bei­jing on the Bei­jing sub­way line.  

More­over, this main and well equipped sta­tion for depar­ture is eas­i­ly accessed glob­al­ly by either sim­ply fly­ing into Bei­jing – from where you can spend a few days explor­ing the city and its cul­tur­al won­ders – before set­ting off, or by fly­ing into any city with­in Chi­na or Hong Kong – and then tak­ing one of the great and mod­ern Chi­nese rails to reach the Trans-Siber­ian depar­ture point.  

For those with more time and bud­get and who want to both explore some of the best of Asia and arrive into Bei­jing with rail miles behind them, there’s the option to arrive from Ho Chi Minh city direct by rail – pass­ing through incred­i­ble sights in Viet­nam. For those seek­ing enlight­en­ment before depart­ing and who are able to secure the nec­es­sary paper­work there’s the option to arrive into Bei­jing from Tibet – on a route that will take you into one of the most spe­cial and holy places on the plan­et – which makes for a great way to begin your life-chang­ing jour­ney on the Trans-Siber­ian net­work.  

Departing from Vladivostok: 

A less trav­elled route – and one for those based in either the east of Rus­sia seek­ing to trav­el the orig­i­nal Trans-Siber­ian route – or based in Sakaim­i­na­to Japan or South Korea where dai­ly fer­ries oper­ate from – depart­ing on the Trans-Siber­ian from Vladi­vos­tok in a west­ern direc­tion will see trav­ellers expe­ri­ence the incred­i­ble beau­ty of Siberia and Lake Baikal, the plains of Rus­sia past the tow­er­ing Ural Moun­tains into mod­ern day Rus­sia – in a route which rep­re­sents an explo­ration of Russia’s past into its mod­ern future.  

Reach­able also by air – into the mod­ern Vladi­vos­tok air­port, trav­ellers depart­ing from Vladi­vos­tok can head to the bright turquoise rail­way sta­tion in the cen­tre of town to begin their jour­ney on the Trans-Siber­ian net­work – and can expect qui­et and less crowd­ed car­riages on their jour­ney – which helps bring both the stun­ning scenery and the reflec­tive nature of this jour­ney to life.  

A route less trav­elled, we’d advise – for the full Trans-Siber­ian expe­ri­ence, only depart­ing from Vladi­vos­tok if there’s no oth­er route avail­able to trav­ellers, as while a charm­ing town, you’ll find a fuller expe­ri­ence – with more access to some of the stun­ning sites, depart­ing from either Bei­jing or Moscow.  

Departing from Moscow: 

The clas­sic – and our high­ly rec­om­mend­ed depar­ture point – for any of the three main trav­eller routes avail­able for the Trans-Siber­ian jour­ney, depart­ing from Moscow undoubt­ed­ly gives you the best expe­ri­ence on this stun­ning net­work, with the main Trans-Siber­ian net­work sta­tion in Moscow – which is known as the Yaroslavskaya Sta­tion (although be sure to check your tick­et) eas­i­ly reach­able from with­in Europe and across the world.  

While our rec­om­men­da­tion would be to extend the begin­ning of your jour­ney and reach Moscow by using the great Euro rail net­work – it’s pos­si­ble due to bud­get and time con­straints – that a more direct method to arrive into Moscow is required. For those whose trav­el require­ments dic­tate this, we’d advise fly­ing either direct­ly into one of the four main air­port of Moscow to begin your jour­ney – or for a slight­ly dif­fer­ent but equal­ly effi­cient option con­sid­er fly­ing into the air­port of Pulko­vo in St Peters­burg – which will give you a chance to explore this great city, before head­ing south to Moscow. With there being direct flights from every cor­ner of the globe into Rus­sia that allow trav­ellers to pick up the Trans-Siber­ian to begin their jour­ney.   

For those with a lit­tle bit more time and a more gen­er­ous bud­get, there’s a much nicer and adven­tur­ous way to arrive into Moscow to pick up the Trans-Siber­ian net­work – and that’s by mak­ing use of the incred­i­ble train net­works that flow across Europe that can drop you right at the Yaroslavskaya sta­tion. This option – which gives trav­ellers the option to decide where in Europe they begin their jour­ney – based on their own explo­ration pref­er­ence – can see explor­ers trav­el from Lon­don and con­nect to the Eurostar to Paris and then either take the direct Paris to Moscow train – or make use of the Euro Rail to trav­el across Ger­many, Italy, Bel­gium, the Nether­lands and then onwards through either Ukraine, Helsin­ki or Belarus to reach Moscow and the Yaroslavskaya Sta­tion to being your jour­ney.  

While trav­el­ling by train into Moscow requires fur­ther exten­sive plan­ning – and pos­si­ble addi­tion­al visas – it’s a great way to begin your jour­ney, and lets explor­ers not only take in some of the incred­i­ble sights and won­ders across Europe – but extend their explo­ration and add fur­ther beau­ty and incred­i­ble moments to their jour­ney on the true won­der of the world that is the Trans-Siber­ian net­work.  

Getting Around: 

As well as decid­ing on your route, itin­er­ary, which sta­tion you’ll depart from and how you’ll get there – you’ll also need to con­sid­er the type and class of train you’re trav­el­ling on – which will like­ly be defined by your bud­get.  

Giv­en the pop­u­lar­i­ty of the Trans-Siber­ian net­work and its rep­u­ta­tion as being one of the great­est jour­neys on the plan­et there’s a range of trains to choose from which can accom­mo­date trav­ellers from all back­grounds, itin­er­aries, and bud­gets: 

Regular Trains – (Russian National Railway Company) 

Start­ing with the most com­mon­ly trav­elled train – and the one that gives you the true Trans-Siber­ian Expe­ri­ence – trav­el­ling on a Russ­ian Nation­al Rail­way train see’s you jour­ney on the same trains and routes that have been trav­elled since the Trans-Siber­ian net­works cre­ation – with the reg­u­lar trains also giv­ing trav­ellers the authen­tic expe­ri­ence in terms of both stopovers and inter­ac­tion with every­day Rus­sians – who use this route as part of their every day lives.  

The reg­u­lar trains are also divid­ed into two main sec­tions – the non-stop route – which is avail­able for those using the Trans-Siber­ian net­work for com­mut­ing only, or the stop-over route – which, as the name sug­gests, fea­tures more stop-offs – and is per­fect for those with more time and flex­i­bil­i­ty in their trav­el, allow­ing for stop-offs at the many stun­ning and beau­ti­ful towns, lakes, and sights along the jour­ney.  

The more eco­nom­i­cal route, you can expect the reg­u­lar trains to offer a food ser­vice and a place to sleep, with trav­ellers hav­ing the choice of three dif­fer­ent class­es when trav­el­ling on the reg­u­lar train: 

Platz­car, the eco­nom­i­cal class: The third and cheap­est class, this is a great option for those trav­el­ling the Trans-Siber­ian on a bud­get, with com­part­ments in this class miss­ing the cab­in expe­ri­ence and instead divid­ed into 54 sleep­er beds in a coach – where you can sit, sleep and watch the beau­ty of Rus­sia from the shared win­dow.  

Undoubt­ed­ly uncom­fort­able at times, and it’s pot luck on who you’ll be in a cab­in with, you’ll find each bed has its own charged for elec­tron­ics, and while this is a great option for those on a bud­get, we’d rec­om­mend using the third class when mak­ing short – not overnight jour­neys – with it being a great option to trav­el to save mon­ey, but not ide­al for a long haul jour­ney.  

The Kupe – Mid­dle Bud­get class: Mov­ing up a class the Kupe car is the sec­ond most expen­sive option on the Trans-Siber­ian and is a great option for those on a bud­get but who want to enjoy an ele­ment of pri­va­cy and com­fort, with trav­ellers in this class jour­ney­ing along the Trans-Siber­ian in a cosy com­part­ment which is made up of 4 peo­ple and fea­tur­ing a shared bath­room as well.  

A great option for those trav­el­ling as a group – or back­pack­ers trav­el­ling overnight, you can again expect elec­tri­cal out­puts, but do be con­scious of your pos­ses­sions and the fact that you can end up shar­ing with any­one – which has the poten­tial to make or break your jour­ney, espe­cial­ly in con­sid­er­a­tion of the long-length of trav­el you may be embark­ing upon dur­ing this jour­ney.  

The Spal­ny Vagon — Pre­mi­um Class: The first class – and our pick for trav­ellers tak­ing a long-haul or overnight jour­ney on the Trans-Siber­ian net­work, the Spal­ny Vagon class is made up of pri­vate com­part­ments that fit 2 trav­ellers – with each com­part­ment hav­ing not only a bed for trav­ellers, but the beds them­selves being com­fort­able into a sofa dur­ing the day – for a fan­tas­tic way to gaze and take in the scenery from the win­dow dur­ing the day.  

Com­bine this also with extra stor­age, a shared show­er, a pri­vate toi­let, and plen­ty of room and its easy to under­stand why these cab­ins require advance book­ing, with a jour­ney across the Trans-Siber­ian in one of the Spal­ny Vagon cab­ins being one of the most com­fort­able and best ways to expe­ri­ence the incred­i­ble won­der of the Trans-Siber­ian net­work.  

Private Trains: 

For those with a lit­tle bit more of a gen­er­ous bud­get – and who fan­cy trav­el­ling the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work in true lux­u­ry, owing to the demand and pop­u­lar­i­ty of this epic jour­ney you can also find a series of pri­vate rail­way lines that tra­verse the Trans-Siber­ian net­work that offer an incred­i­ble five-star expe­ri­ence.  

Tak­ing you from Moscow to Bei­jing via Ulaan­baatar on the clas­sic trav­eller route with mul­ti­ple stops, these pri­vate trains are required to be booked at least three months in advance and trav­ellers upon them can expect their own pri­vate cab­in, deli­cious food, pri­vate show­ers and bath­room and a stun­ning panoram­ic glass view of the best of the Russ­ian, Siber­ian, Mon­go­lian and Chi­nese scenery and land­scapes.  

A great option for those tak­ing on the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work for a spe­cial occa­sion, includ­ing an anniver­sary or hon­ey­moon, the pri­vate trains on the Trans-Siber­ian net­work run only a cou­ple of times a year and fill up quick­ly, but for those who want a roman­tic, stun­ning and unfor­get­table expe­ri­ence – and whose bud­get allows for it – this is undoubt­ed­ly the best option to explore this incred­i­ble won­der of the world.  

Best time to Visit: 

No more can the indi­vid­ual unique­ness of a jour­ney on the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work be seen than in the dif­fer­ing expe­ri­ences trav­ellers will encounter depend­ing on the time of year they opt to vis­it and trav­el on this stun­ning won­der.  

Oper­at­ing all year round – you’ll find that late spring, sum­mer and ear­ly Autumn (April – Sep­tem­ber) pro­vide the most com­fort­able and warm con­di­tions on the trains, and in the mul­ti­ple stop-offs, with both the Russ­ian Wilder­ness, the Ural Moun­tains, Lake Baikal and in par­tic­u­lar­ly Mon­go­lia being pleas­ant and enjoy­able dur­ing this peri­od – where as those who opt to trav­el out of this sea­son (Octo­ber – March) like­ly to encounter chal­leng­ing and cold con­di­tions – with those who trav­el in win­ter like­ly to expe­ri­ence the freez­ing tem­per­a­tures that come with a long, hard, and cold Russ­ian Win­ter.  

For this rea­son, most trav­ellers opt to trav­el between April – Sep­tem­ber, and in par­tic­u­lar­ly between May – August, so for this rea­son, while the con­di­tions are pleas­ant, there is com­pe­ti­tion and a rush on tick­ets dur­ing this peri­od. As a result of this – while it does add to the social ele­ment on trains — there’s a strong need to not only plan in advance – but be sure to book your tick­ets well in advance – not­ing that trains on the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work may not run every day – and we’d advise to bud­get a lit­tle bit more for each tick­et when trav­el­ling dur­ing this peri­od.  

While those trav­el­ling in win­ter, won’t find the same demand for tick­ets, and can enjoy a qui­eter more relaxed expe­ri­ence, the chal­leng­ing nature of the con­di­tions can­not be under­stand­ed. With the freez­ing weath­er not only hav­ing the poten­tial to take the edge of a trip but requir­ing you to bring plen­ty of warm clothes and sup­plies. Yet for those who opt for this route – or for whom this is the only win­dow of trav­el avail­able – don’t let the cold weath­er deter you – as while you’ll have short­er days, the snow-swept scenery of Russia’s wilder­ness and Mongolia’s Steppe is tru­ly stun­ning and make for tru­ly incred­i­ble pho­tos.  

One fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion for the adven­tur­ous trav­ellers who are seek­ing to fill their jour­ney with as many expe­ri­ences and mem­o­ries as pos­si­ble, is that a jour­ney on the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work can see you expe­ri­ence not one, but two of the world’s great­est fes­ti­vals; the White Nights Fes­ti­val & Scar­let Sails Show in St Peter­burg and the Nad­dam Fes­ti­val in Ulaan­baatar.  

Tru­ly two of the world’s great­est fes­ti­vals, the White Nights Fes­ti­val takes place over sum­mer sol­stice and the mid­night sun takes place over the course of the month – with the grand finale like­ly tak­ing place with the mid­night sun in June, where as Nad­dam takes place on the 10th – 13th of July – mean­ing that if you time your trip right, you can catch both fes­ti­val on the same epic jour­ney.  

Along­side this both fes­ti­vals have the advan­tage of tak­ing place in the sum­mer in both coun­tries giv­ing you favourable con­di­tions, with it being pos­si­ble to depart on a 2 week adven­ture across Rus­sia on the Trans-Siber­ian after catch­ing the White Nights Fes­ti­val to then arrive into Ulaan­baatar for the start of Nad­dam – for a tru­ly spe­cial trip.  

So while the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work is open year round, our rec­om­men­da­tion for those who want long pleas­ant days, and a pleas­ant train expe­ri­ence would be to head dur­ing the spring – autumn months, and par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing May ‑August, where you’ll find the sights along the jour­ney at their most enjoy­able, the com­pa­ny on the train at it’s most socia­ble and the over­all expe­ri­ence on this stun­ning won­der of the world at its most enjoy­able.  

With those who are able to – and who fan­cy a true adven­ture – advised to time their vis­it to vis­it both the White Nights and Nad­dam Fes­ti­vals, tim­ing their trav­el from Mid-June to Mid-July.  

Best Time To Trav­el: Sum­mer Sea­son (May – August) – with Mid-June to Mid-July the best option for the tru­ly adven­tur­ous trav­eller.  

How long to stay:

A trip that spans a third of the world – one of the true beau­ties of the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work is the free­dom that trav­ellers have to define their jour­ney – with trips on this stun­ning rail net­work capa­ble of last­ing as lit­tle as 7 days – to the com­mon route of 10–14 days – or last­ing as long as a cou­ple of months for those with a healthy bud­get and plen­ty of time who wish to see the best that the Trans-Siber­ian – and Rus­sia, Mon­go­lia and Chi­na have to offer.  

While decid­ing on the length of your trip will like­ly be defined by your bud­get – and how much time you have, there’s a range of options avail­able for every trav­eller to cus­tomise and define their jour­ney – with their also being a choice for trav­ellers as to whether they depart from Moscow (which we’d rec­om­mend) for the clas­sic Trans-Siber­ian expe­ri­ence or from Bei­jing for a qui­eti­er and more tran­quil expe­ri­ence.  

Still while there’s no set route or time­frame, there are three clas­sic routes on the Trans-Siber­ian express, which we’ve sum­marised, with the advised time­frame (includ­ing stops below): 

Route 1: The Trans Siber­ian & Trans-Mon­go­lian Route: (14–21 days min­i­mum)  The clas­sic adven­tur­ist route – and the one that see’s you trav­el the full length of the Trans-Siber­ian net­work – tak­ing you from Rus­sia the Russ­ian Cap­i­tal of Moscow – to Vladi­vos­tok, before sync­ing up with the Trans-Mon­go­lian Route and south towards the Mon­go­lian cap­i­tal of Ulaan­baatar then onwards to Bei­jing – where your epic adven­ture ends.  

This route will take a min­i­mum of 10 days to com­plete – how­ev­er we’d strong­ly rec­om­mend that trav­ellers bud­get 14 – 21 days on this jour­ney – account­ing for stops in at least Kazan, Perm (for the Ural Moun­tains), Irkut­sk and lake Baikal, Ulan Ude, and then a cou­ple of days explor­ing Mon­go­lia before fin­ish­ing up in Bei­jing.  

A jour­ney that will take you through the true high­lights of the Trans-Siber­ian, for those who fan­cy extra stops and who want to explore the best of Rus­sia his­to­ry, you could also make time to explore Kras­no­yarsk and Yeka­ter­in­burg – as well as the Altai moun­tains – to take in the best of Rus­sia scenery – how­ev­er for this route and add-on we’d advise adding on an extra 5 days.  

Route 2: The Trans-Manchuria / Trans-Siber­ian: (10 days)   The route that takes you across Rus­sia and direct­ly to Bei­jing via Lake Baikal – this is a great route for those short­er on time, but still want to expe­ri­ence the best of Rus­sia and Siberia on thi­er way.  

For this route we’d advise bud­get­ing 10 days – and mak­ing your way towards Bei­jing with stops in Kazan, Irkut­sk and lake Baikal and then Ulan Ude before head­ing direct­ly to Bei­jing – for a 10 day or so epic adven­ture.  

While it can be appeal­ing to take this route as an option for explor­ing Rus­sia in more depth, giv­en the unique­ness and trav­el expe­ri­ence avail­able via the Trans-Mon­go­lian route, we’d only rec­om­mend this route for those short on time and mon­ey who want to expe­ri­ence a full jour­ney on the Trans-Siber­ian, but for whom Mon­go­lia is out of reach.  

Route 3: The Trans-Siber­ian Route (7–9 days): The direct and short­est route – this is the clas­sic Trans-Siber­ian route that cov­ers more than 9,000 kilo­me­tres across the whole of Rus­sia – tak­ing trav­ellers from across Moscow and Siberia all the way to Vladi­vos­tok in Russia’s east.  

For trav­ellers and explo­ration, this is a less favoured route – as it cuts out some of the incred­i­ble scenic won­ders and the real trav­el expe­ri­ence avail­able on either the Trans-Mon­go­lian or Trans-Manchuri­an routes – so, in our view, this is not a rec­om­mend­ed route for trav­ellers – but is a great route for those com­mut­ing across Rus­sia.  

For those who do opt for this route, the quick­est train takes just over 7 days – and if there is no oth­er option but to take this route – we’d advise adding in a day or two stop-off in Irkut­sk and lake Baikal for a jour­ney that will take you just over 9 days and give you some of the best of the Russ­ian wilder­ness as you trav­el on the orig­i­nal and clas­sic won­der of the world of the Trans-Siber­ian express.  

As well as plan­ning out your route you’ll need to take into account the time it takes to get to Moscow or Bei­jing – with those fly­ing in advised to bud­get an extra 2 days at least – and those tak­ing our rec­om­mend­ed route into Moscow by train and stop­ping off in St Peters­burg advised to between an extra 5 – 7 days to com­plete their jour­ney before board­ing the Trans-Siber­ian express – although this is again a jour­ney that can be com­plet­ed in as lit­tle as 2 days.  

For those tim­ing their trip around fes­ti­vals – the Trans-Siber­ian offers fan­tas­tic access to two great fes­ti­vals – the White Nights Fes­ti­val in St Peters­burg – which you can bud­get 2 days for – and for the more adven­tur­ous – the Naadam Fes­ti­val – where you’ll get to wit­ness the absolute best of tra­di­tion­al Mon­go­lian cul­ture – and the tri-tour­na­ment of writes­ling, horse-rac­ing and archery – as well as the famed open­ing and clos­ing cer­e­monies – for a spec­ta­cle like no oth­er. For those attend­ing the Naadam fes­ti­val – you’ll need to add an extra 3 nights at least onto your jour­ney.  

There­fore – while each jour­ney upon the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work will be dif­fer­ent and be defined by bud­get, time and inter­est – based upon our rec­om­men­da­tion of tak­ing Route 1 – the clas­sic jour­ney that takes you from Moscow to Lake Baikal, down to Mon­go­lia and Ulaan­baatar before fin­ish­ing in Bei­jing – and allow­ing time for stops and fes­ti­vals would be to bud­get between 14–21 days for the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work – not includ­ing get­ting there and a trip to St. Peters­burg.   

With this amount of time giv­ing trav­ellers the chance to tai­lor their jour­ney to their own desire and take in the best of cul­ture, his­to­ry and the scenic beau­ties that await you on the true won­der of the world that is the Trans-Siber­ian net­work. 

As an incred­i­bly route sug­ges­tion, a route on the Trans-Siber­ian net­work may look like: 

Day 1: Moscow – Day 2: Moscow – Kazan day 3: Kazan – Perm Day 4: Perm Day 5: Train day 6: Train Day 7: Irkut­sk & lake Baikal Day 8: Irkut­sk & lake Baikal Day 9: Irkut­sk to Ulan Ude Day 10: Ulan Ude & back on Train Day 11: Train towards Ulaan­baatar Day 12: Ulaan­baatar  Day 13: Terelj Nation­al Park Day 14: Ulaan­baatar  & train15: Ulaan­baatar to Bei­jing Day 16: Bei­jing & fin­ish. 

How­ev­er, we’d rec­om­mend tak­ing the above and tai­lor­ing it for your own stop-offs, tours and fes­ti­vals — to ensure your jour­ney is as com­plete, epic and spe­cial for your­self.   

Top Tips:

An epic roller­coast­er of a jour­ney, as thrilling and life-chang­ing as trav­el­ling on the Trans-Siber­ian express is, it’s an adven­ture that requires an immense amount of prepa­ra­tion and plan­ning – with the lev­el of pre­pared­ness and a sol­id itin­er­ary being the true back­bone of explo­ration that will make or break any trip on this stun­ning won­der.  

This plan­ning stretch­es not just for accom­mo­dat­ing for your route and the stops, hotels and food, but also ensur­ing that explor­ers have the nec­es­sary visas, sup­plies and resources to sur­vive on the Trans-Siber­ian jour­ney – with those head­ing into the Mon­go­lian wilder­ness or trav­el­ling in win­ter like­ly to face extra­or­di­nar­i­ly tough and chal­leng­ing con­di­tions.   

Cou­ple this as well, with the need to ensure your jour­ney – par­tic­u­lar­ly on those long hours trav­el­ling across the Russ­ian plains – are as enjoy­able, enter­tain­ing and safe as pos­si­ble, and sud­den­ly the vol­ume of con­sid­er­a­tions and plan­ning need to not only com­plete but make the most out of this increi­d­ble expe­ri­ence can become daunt­ing.  

There­fore, while every jour­ney and adven­ture upon the Trans-Siber­ian express will be dif­fer­ent and unique – and defined in scope by each trav­eller’s bud­get, dura­tion and desire to stop-off – there are a num­ber of uni­ver­sal top-tips that we’d rec­om­mend in order to both make your jour­ney on this incred­i­ble won­der of the world as smooth and as enjoy­able as pos­si­ble.  

Visas: 

Start­ing with it will be one of the most labo­ri­ous and chal­leng­ing tasks, that will face all trav­ellers before they step onto the Trans-Siber­ian express, visas for entry.  

Depend­ing on which of the three routes you opt to trav­el (Moscow to Vladi­vos­tok, Moscow to Bei­jing via Ulaan­baatar (Trans-Siber­ian and Trans-Mon­go­lian), or Moscow to Bei­jing (Trans-Siber­ian & Trans-Manchuri­an) and your direc­tion of trav­el, your visa require­ments will dif­fer. How­ev­er to begin with in tack­ling this process, every­one trav­el­ling upon the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work will require a Russ­ian Visa, which is the most com­plex of the three Visas you may need to obtain.  

The Russian Visa:

First-up in get­ting your Russ­ian Visa, you’ll need to decide on which kind of visa you require, which will be decid­ed by the length of time you plan on spend­ing with­in rus­sia and how many stops you choose to take. With their being two types of Russ­ian visa avail­able for those trav­el­ling on the Trans-Siber­ian Express: 

The Tourist Visa:  The most pop­u­lar and easy visa, the tourist visa allows for a sin­gle, or dou­ble entry (no more) into Rus­sia and is valid for up to 30 days. The low cost of this visa makes it an ide­al choice for those trav­el­ling on a tight bud­get and timescale.  

The Busi­ness Visa:  The more expen­sive option, and sub­ject to more scruti­ny, the Busi­ness Visa is the option for those seek­ing mul­ti­ple entries into Rus­sia and who wish to stay longer than 30 days. A stan­dard busi­ness visa allows for 90 days of trav­el but can be extend­ed up to a year if required.  

Along­side decid­ing on your visa, you’ll then need to com­ply with the admin­is­tra­tive sec­tion, which includes ensur­ing that if you’re stay­ing in one place for longer than 9 days, you have offi­cial­ly reg­is­tered with the Russ­ian Gov­ern­ment (which is nor­mal­ly done by the hotels them­selves, but be sure to check) and that the entry and exit dates on your visa match up strict­ly with your itin­er­ary– as this will be rig­or­ous­ly enforced with­in Rus­sia. For this rea­son, we strong­ly advise all trav­ellers with­in Rus­sia to keep all their paper and dig­i­tal receipts secure­ly.  

Hav­ing got all this sort­ed – and checked your entry and exit dates and being able to pro­vide proof of your hotel, you’ll then need to go through the process of obtain­ing an invi­ta­tion let­ter to enter Rus­sia. The invi­ta­tion let­ter can some­times seem daunt­ing, how­ev­er there are a range of Russ­ian online ser­vices that can assist (and even some hotels depend­ing on the class of hotel you are stay­ing wihtin) in secur­ing this let­ter. For those run­ning short on options, the best route is to seek to book your train tick­ets online with a trav­el agency and secure their help in get­ting your invi­ta­tion let­ter.  

After secur­ing an invi­ta­tion let­ter, and three months before your trav­el – you are then able to apply for a Russ­ian Visa. Depend­ing on your cit­i­zen­ship and your base coun­try, this will either be by post – or more like­ly in an appoint­ment in an embassy / visa ser­vice, where you will hand over your doc­u­ments and itin­er­ary for con­sid­er­a­tion for a visa — which, all being well, will be con­firmed for you a week lat­er.  

A chal­leng­ing, and painstak­ing process – but one that is well worth it in con­sid­er­a­tion of the jour­ney ahead, plan­ning in advance for the visa, and ensur­ing you apply at the start of the three-month mark is high­ly rec­om­mend­ed if you are to avoid one of the com­mon pit­falls of Trans-Siber­ian trav­el and suc­cess­ful­ly make your way into Rus­sia to begin your jour­ney.  

China Visas: 

For those tak­ing on the Trans-Manchuri­an line or enter­ing Bei­jing via Ulaan­baatar, then the next visa you’ll need to obtain is the Chi­nese Visa, which is thank­ful­ly sim­pler and eas­i­er than obtain­ing a Russ­ian Visa.  

For the Chi­nese visa, which is required by all, you’ll need to ensure you have your trav­el dates to hand, as well as your vac­ci­na­tion stat­ues and two pass­port pho­tos, then with your mon­ey to hand you can then head to your local embassy and sub­mit your appli­ca­tion.  

We would strong­ly rec­om­mend not leav­ing your Chi­nese visa appli­ca­tion till the last minute and apply­ing around 2 months in advance – as there have been reports of peo­ple hav­ing visa appli­ca­tions applied for in Mon­go­lia refused – mean­ing they have to fly out from Ulaan­baatar back home and don’t get to com­plete their full jour­ney on the Trans-Siber­ian.  

Mongolian Visas 

The sim­plest visa to obtain – and a visa that will unlock one of the worlds last fron­tiers and a path­way to true wilder­ness, peo­ple with Amer­i­can, Cana­di­an and select Euro­pean and Asian coun­tries are able to enter Mon­go­lia for free – which cer­taint­ly helps for those plan­ning a longer and less strict itin­er­ary.  

For those who do require a visa for Mon­go­lia, the process is as sim­ple as either head­ing to the Mon­go­lian Con­sulate in Irkut­sk in Siberia while you explore Lake Baikal, or for those who want to have their visa on hand before enter­ing you can down­load the Mon­go­lian visa form 2 months before your date of trav­el and head to the Mon­go­lian con­sulate – where a quick check will be done on your form and you’ll get you visa on the spot.  

What to Bring: 

Hav­ing got your visas to hand you can turn your atten­tion onto the essen­tial items that you’ll need to bring to make it through and ensure that your jour­ney is as enjoy­able as pos­si­ble.  

These items will need to last you for at least 10 –12 days if not longer, and you’ll need to pack accord­ing to the sea­son and weath­er you’re trav­el­ling in, with those trav­el­ling in win­ter and into the Mon­go­lian Steppe advised to pack for extreme arc­tic con­di­tions, where as those trav­el­ling in sum­mer can pack lighter – and be sure to bring plen­ty of sun­screen and swim­ming shorts to enjoy the won­ders and stop-offs along a jour­ney of the Trans-Siber­ian express.  

Whichev­er sea­son – and route you opt for, there are a cou­ple of essen­tials for any trip along the Trans-Siber­ian that we’d rec­om­mend every trav­eller packs: 

- Snacks and food: Arguably the most impor­tant in our book! — a jour­ney along the Trans-Siber­ian can be long, and at time you may find food options lim­it­ed. As trav­el­ling on an emp­ty stom­ach can be a tru­ly unpleas­ant expe­ri­ence – we’d rec­om­mend­ed com­ing with – and stock­ing up along the way – on plen­ty of choco­lates, crisps, instant noo­dles, cof­fee, tea and water – and be sure to bring a bot­tle, flask, pock­etknife and a tub­baware and a spoon and fork as well – to make sure you can eat any instant meals.  

• Hygiene Sup­plies – For those trav­el­ling in the low­er class­es on the Trans-Siber­ian Rail­way, you’ll find show­ers in short sup­ply – and often they may not be the clean­est of best place to wash. There­fore – we’d real­ly rec­om­mend bring­ing deodor­ant, tooth­paste, tooth­brush, san­i­tary prod­ucts, and plen­ty of wet wipes and toi­let paper – to make sure you are fresh for the jour­ney ahead.  
  

• Med­i­cine Sup­plies – While you of course plan for the best on your jour­ney on the Trans-Siber­ian (and we cer­tain­ly hope your jour­ney is pain free) giv­en the length of your jour­ney and the long trips on the Trans-Siber­ian netowrk – it’s best to plan for the worse. So, to this end we’d advise tak­ing plen­ty of painkillers, asprin, throat sweets, Imod­i­um and ban­dages with you along the way – to be sure you are pre­pared for any med­ical inci­dents.  
  

• Elec­tron­ics & enter­tain­ment: Whilst an undoubt­ed high­light of any Trans-Siber­ian jour­ney is watch­ing the wilder­ness and beau­ty of Rus­sia, Siberia and Mon­go­lia roll past your win­dow – with the end­less plains, tow­er­ing moun­tains and gor­geous rivers pro­vid­ing tru­ly stun­ning scenery. There will undoubt­ed­ly be nights and moments where a good book, e‑reader or film will come in handy, as well as every trav­eller like­ly being required to check emails, get through some work and thoughts on a lap­top or phone – and of course keep fam­i­ly and friends updat­ed on their trav­el.  

For these rea­sons, we’d advise ensur­ing you bring at least one phone – which con­tains a Russ­ian Sim card, a tablet – and pos­si­bly a lap­top, and be sure to bring plen­ty of pow­er-banks – and a uni­ver­sal adapter for the car­riages and charg­ing. With those less inclined for tech­nol­o­gy advised to bring cards, and mini board games – which rep­re­sent a great way to both pass the time and make new friends along your jour­ney.   

• Trans­la­tion – while avail­able as an app on most phones (be sure to get an offline ver­sion) we’d advise also bring a Russ­ian Phase book or dic­tio­nary. While you’ll find that – for those that speak it — there is a gen­er­al under­stand­ing of Eng­lish on the trains, for those ven­tur­ing into the remote areas of Rus­sia and Siberia – and trav­el­ling in the cheap­er class­es- hav­ing a way to com­mu­ni­cate and speak will be a life-saver – so we’d real­ly advise car­ry­ing at least an app capa­ble of trans­la­tion – or for those who don’t have an app a trans­la­tion dic­tio­nary.  
  

• Clothes – The item that will vary depend­ing on the time and sea­son you take on the Trans-Siber­ian express, we’d encour­age as a basis to first­ly pack trav­el wash­ing laun­dry – and then make sure you have mul­ti­ple pairs of under­wear, t‑shirts, jumpers, a tow­el, socks, flip-flops, a coat, hat and a hood­ie. With those trav­el­ling in the sum­mer – and fans of hik­ing – advised to bring sol­id Hik­ing boots and Odor free socks – as well as a sol­id hat, sun­glass­es, swim­ming shorts and plen­ty of sun­screen. With those trav­el­ling in win­ter advised to bring mul­ti­ple thick lay­ers, gloves, a wool­ly hat, a scarf, ther­mal under­wear and tops, a thick tow­el and sol­id warm­ing socks – to account for the freez­ing tem­per­a­tures you’ll encounter along the way.  
  

Cur­ren­cies and Mon­ey – final­ly, while you can pur­chase tick­ets for the Trans-Siber­ian express online, it’s essen­tial that every trav­eller comes with plen­ty of Russ­ian Rubels, Mon­go­lian Tugrik and Chi­nese Yuan (depend­ing on your route) — with there often being extor­tion­ate rates charged for cur­ren­cy exchange which can real­ly impact any bud­get. Addi­tion­al­ly we’d advise trav­el­ling with a cred­it card (for emer­gen­cies) and a spe­cial trav­el card (such as wise) that you can use to con­firm hotel reser­va­tions and eas­i­ly (and cheap­ly) with­draw mon­ey from – help­ing you save extra room in your bud­get for more expe­ri­ences on the Trans-Siber­ian net­work.   

Food on the Trans-Siberian:

As well as fol­low­ing our top-tip on mak­ing sure you bring plen­ty of snacks and food essen­tials (includ­ing tub­baware, a flask and cut­lery) it’s great as well to under­stand the food options on the Trans-Siber­ian train itself – both so you can plan and ration your snacks and get the full trans-Siber­ian expe­ri­ence of try­ing the local food ! 

For those trav­el­ling on a main Trans-Siber­ian net­work train – regard­less of the class of the car­riage you’re trav­el­ling in, you can find a restau­rant car­riage in every train. This restau­rant car­riage not only offers a great place to take a break from your own cab­in – but with great win­dows – offers a stun­ning view as you munch down on some tasty food.  

Open every day from 9am – 9pm, you’ll find it also dou­bles up as a social space as well – with the meals on offer being tra­di­tion­al­ly Russ­ian – full of hearty veg­eta­bles, warm and capa­ble of fill­ing up a hun­gry trav­eller. For those trav­el­ling along the Trans-Manchuri­an or Trans-Mon­go­lian line – look for the same car­riage in the mid­dle of the train – but expect a chance in menu towards more noo­dle and tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese dish­es – which can be equal­ly tasty.  

With each train also hav­ing a trol­ley that does a round once a day (a great way to stock up on snacks) there’s a range of options for eat­ing on any jour­ney – but for those on a tight bud­get, or who find them­selves out and about all day before pick­ing up the train, you can often find plat­form din­ing – which takes the form of street ven­dors – dot­ted along the rail­way line wait­ing for hun­gry trav­ellers, with these ven­dors who offer every­thing from cig­a­rettes to hot­dogs mak­ing for a great – if ques­tion­ably hygien­ic – way to get your meals for the train jour­ney ahead.  

Safety:

One of the core rea­sons a jour­ney along the Trans-Siber­ian net­work is a thrilling and tru­ly life-chang­ing expe­ri­ence, is undoubt­ed­ly due to the high lev­el of safe­ty trav­ellers expe­ri­ence and enjoy on these trains.  

Safe for fam­i­lies, cou­ples and solo trav­ellers – regard­less of the class of train you trav­el in – it’s immense­ly rare for there to be inci­dents on any Trans-Siber­ian train, with each train being not only kept thor­ough­ly clean, but each car­riage on the train hav­ing its own con­duc­tor and safe­ty per­son­al – respon­si­ble for the safe­ty on those onboard.  

How­ev­er, with that said, it’s always a good idea to fol­low basic safe­ty tips when trav­el­ling on the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work – includ­ing lim­it­ing your alco­hol intake, not flash­ing mon­ey, not leav­ing items unat­tend­ed and ensur­ing that cas­es and pro­tect­ed items are stored in the pro­vid­ed safe­ty box­es.  

Addi­tion­al­ly, for those sleep­ing in car­riages – we’d encour­age you to make sure that your rooms are dou­bly locked and secured before set­tling in for the night, as while safe­ty is para­mount on the Trans-Siber­ian and there are great pro­to­cols in place, it’s also advis­able to plan for any poten­tial inci­dent.  

Getting there and Getting Around: 

In com­pli­ment to the detailed overview pro­vid­ed in the Get­ting there and get­ting around sec­tion, we’d encour­age all trav­ellers who are depart­ing from Moscow and are not based in Rus­sia to begin their jour­ney not by fly­ing into Moscow – but instead make use of the fan­tas­tic EuroStar and Euro­rail net­works to get to Moscow to begin their jour­ney.  

An adven­ture in itself, get­ting to Moscow by train not only lets you extend your jour­ney – but giv­en the poten­tial train routes into Moscow – which includ­ing depart­ing from Lon­don and cross­ing the best of Europe to arrive, head­ing through the Nordic region and Fin­land into Moscow or tak­ing a euro-trip and head­ing into St Peter­burg, from where you can then head south into Moscow to begin your jour­ney.  

A route with end­less pos­si­bil­i­ties, head­ing into Moscow by train is not only an epic jour­ney, but one that can allow trav­ellers to expe­ri­ence the best of Europe and check out stun­ning won­ders on their way – and is undoubt­ed­ly one of our top tips for this epic jour­ney.  

As well as ensur­ing your route get­ting there is as enjoy­able and adven­tur­ous as pos­si­ble, trav­ellers will also need to be aware of the main train class­es before set­ting off – with each one offer­ing a dif­fer­ent lev­el of com­fort and impact on your bud­get. Divid­ed into three class­es, First (the most expen­sive – with pri­vate cab­in and win­dow, sock­ets and a restroom), Sec­ond (the mid range option – with car­riages of four, sock­ets, a win­dow and a shared restroom) and third ( the least expen­sive, divid­ed into 54 bunk bed in a dor­mi­to­ry style, with shared sock­ets and shared win­dows) — there are a range of cab­ins to suit each trav­el­er.  

While the qual­i­ty and what to expect is detailed in full in our Get­ting around the Trans-Siber­ian net­work guide, it’s impor­tant that trav­ellers assess not only their bud­get – but also their desired com­fort lev­el, elec­tri­cal require­ments and who they’re trav­el­ling with, before decid­ing on which class they opt for. With these deci­sion all being an essen­tial part of our most impor­tant top tip for trav­el­ling on the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work – plan­ning in advance.  

Plan in advance:

Final­ly, per­haps the most cru­cial bit of advice for any­one tak­ing on a jour­ney along the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work – it is crit­i­cal that you plan your itin­er­ary, route, stop-offs and bud­get well in advance.  

The piv­otal thing that will make or break your adven­ture, plan­ning in advance will allow you not just to secure your visas in a time­ly man­ner, but also so you can make sure your jour­ney is every­thing it should be. With each trav­eller hav­ing to con­sid­er their stop-offs – based off their own bud­get and time­line – as well as inter­ests, with trips on the Trans-Siber­ian being tai­lored for nature lovers (Ural Moun­tains, Lake Baikal, the Mon­go­lian Steppe) His­to­ry Buffs (the Krem­lin, the Yeka­ter­in­burg and the muse­ums of Bei­jing) and won­der lovers (the red square, the great wall and the For­bid­den Palace).  

Along­side this, plan­ning in advance is essen­tial for those with one eye on their bud­get, with the soon­er you book train tick­ets and accom­mo­da­tion, the cheap­er things are like­ly to cost (see below) giv­ing the bud­get con­scious trav­ellers more room to explore some of the incred­i­ble stops and sights along their jour­ney – or upgrade to a more com­fort­able car­riage to enjoy their jour­ney.  

The tru­ly essen­tial part of any Trans-Siber­ian expe­ri­ence, the val­ue of plan­ning your jour­ney on the Trans-Siber­ian can­not be under­stat­ed – with it being only through advanced prepa­ra­tion that you can ful­ly enjoy the life-chang­ing expe­ri­ence that is a jour­ney on the won­der of the world that is the Trans-Siber­ian net­work. 

Cost:  

An adven­ture that will take you across a third of the world and through the best of Eura­sia, a jour­ney along the Trans-Siber­ian net­work, despite the sheer length of its tracks, can be incred­i­bly afford­able – with there being a range of bud­get pos­si­bil­i­ties and options avail­able to ensure that every trav­eller can expe­ri­ence this incred­i­ble won­der of the world.  

While each and every jour­ney on the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work will be dif­fer­ent – and the cost will of course vary based on which of the three clas­sic trav­eller routes you opt for (Trans-Siber­ian, Trans-Manchuri­an or Trans-Mon­go­lian), the amount of stop-offs on your way, the dura­tion of your trip, the time you depart and the class of train you opt for – to begin with your bud­get­ing there’s a cou­ple of base costs that every Trans-Siber­ian net­work jour­ney will involve.  

Cost of Getting There: 

First-up, you’ll need to bud­get to get to your start­ing point – which will like­ly be one of either Moscow or Bei­jing. For those start­ing from Bei­jing and seek­ing to trav­el east to west, there are two main options, the first is that you can sim­ply fly into the cap­i­tal – which for those based in Asia will cost between $200 — $300 USD – or for those with more time and who want to a fur­ther taste of train trav­el with­in Asia – you can get a direct train from either Tibet or take on the thrill of rid­ing Vietnam’s mag­nif­i­cent Reunion Express to reach Bei­jing.  

For those who are depart­ing from Bei­jing, and who are seek­ing a sim­ple and more direct method of reach­ing their depar­ture point by fly­ing, we’d advise con­sid­er look­ing at the prices of fly­ing into neigh­bour­ing cities – such as Hong Kong or Shang­hai – where not only can you get a day or two explor­ing some of the best fas­ci­nat­ing cities in Asia, but you may also be able to save a lit­tle on your bud­get by fly­ing into these towns and tak­ing the train towards Bei­jing.  

When depart­ing from Moscow, there’s a wealth of options and a range of bud­get options for trav­ellers to con­sid­er and pick from. First-up for those trav­el­ling from out­side of Europe – or for those on a strict timescale and itin­er­ary, fly­ing into Moscow may be the only option avail­able, with flights into Moscow from out­side Europe start­ing at $500 Usd and ris­ing as high as $1500 Usd based on your depar­ture loca­tion, with flights inside Europe to Moscow begin­ning from as lit­tle as $50 Usd.  

How­ev­er, for those with more time our rec­om­men­da­tion would be to avoid fly­ing into Moscow to begin your jour­ney, and instead make arriv­ing at your des­ti­na­tion part of your adven­ture on the Trans-Siber­ian. To do this you’ll be mak­ing use of the incred­i­ble rail net­work spread across Europe, with both the Eurostar and Euro-Rail both fan­tas­tic options to arrive into Moscow from across Europe.  

For those based out­side Europe – and on a bud­get – the eas­i­est way to take on this route is to bag the cheap­est one-way flight into any major Euro­pean city that you can and then con­nect to the Euro­pean rail net­works. While it’s pos­si­ble to trav­el from across Europe – some key cities and routes we’d rec­om­mend is either head­ing from Paris to Rus­sia on the Paris Russ­ian train, tak­ing in the sites of main­land Europe in the Nether­lands, Bel­gium and Ger­many before head­ing through Ukraine and into Moscow, or tak­ing the Nordic route and mak­ing your way through main­land Europe up towards Helsin­ki and over the bor­der into Moscow – which is a fan­tas­tic win­ter option for those who want to com­bine their Trans-Siber­ian expe­ri­ence with the nat­ur­al won­der of the Aureo Boulis.  

There’s also the train enthu­si­ast and extend­ed option which com­bines the best of the Euro­rail above with one of the world’s pre­mier cities in Lon­don, with trains leav­ing from St Pan­creas sta­tion in Lon­don and con­nect­ing to Europe – allow­ing trav­ellers to expe­ri­ence a train jour­ney that stretch­es across almost half of the world, for an epic and tru­ly mem­o­rable adven­ture.  

A high­ly rec­om­mend­ed option to begin your jour­ney on the Trans-Siber­ian express, trav­el­ling across the great Euro­pean net­work will take extra plan­ning and time – but again there are a range of bud­get options – with trav­ellers tak­ing this route advised to bud­get between $100 — $400 Usd for trav­el across europe by train to reach Moscow.y

Train Tickets: 

Hav­ing got your­self to your point of depar­ture and fig­ured out your route, the next thing on your list will be to secure your train tick­ets. 

Before book­ing them, you’ll need to decide on the class that you’re trav­el­ling on, with there being three options that each cater to the rel­e­vant bud­get of a trav­eller when trav­el­ling on the Russ­ian Nation­al Rail­way trains: 

- Third / Econ­o­my class (platz­card): (the most bud­get friend­ly option): The best option for those who want the Trans-Siber­ian expe­ri­ence but are trav­el­ling on a bud­get, the Econ­o­my class – or Platz­card option – caters to the back­pack­ing class, and you trav­ellers on this route can expect a bed in dor­mi­to­ry style open plan train car­riage. Equipped with sock­ets, a small desk and a win­dow, the Platz­card class is a great option for trav­el­ling between cities on the Trans-Siber­ian rail­way, but not rec­om­mend­ed for long trav­el.  

You can expect tick­ets to start from between $25 — $50 per leg, or for a full-length trip from Moscow to Vladi­vos­tok to cost $200 and a full-length trip from Moscow to Irkut­sk to cost $150 – with a trip to Irkut­sk giv­ing you the best of Siberia and being a great way to expe­ri­ence a jour­ney on the Trans-Siber­ian express.  

- Sec­ond Class (Kupe) — The best option for those trav­el­ling long-haul on the Trans-Siber­ian express and trav­el­ling on a bud­get, the Kupe class is undoubt­ed­ly the best option – with this sec­tion being the best option on your bud­get while pro­vid­ing an ele­ment of com­fort need­ed for such a long trip.  

Com­posed of 10 com­part­ments – made up of 2 bunk beds, a shared toi­let and a com­mu­nal show­er., one of the great fea­tures of the Kupe class is the win­dows avail­able in each com­part­ment – that allows for stun­ning views of the wilder­ness, moun­tains, lakes and scenery that will pass you by on your jour­ney – a sin­gle leg in sec­ond class can cost between $50 — $100 USD, and for a larg­er jour­ney from Moscow to Irkut­sk / Vladi­vos­tok or beyond includ­ing Mon­go­lia and Bei­jing, start from $250 Usd and go upwards in price based on your length of trav­el.  

- First Class (“Spal­ny Vagon”) - The most expen­sive option – but the choice for those trav­el­ling with a gen­er­ous bud­get, the first-class cab­ins on the Trans-Siber­ian are com­posed of 9 car­riages con­tain­ing 2 beds, and offer plen­ty of stor­age, space, and best of all a pri­vate viewe­ing win­dow – from where you cap­ture the absolute best of the famed Trans-Siber­ian land­scapes.  

A great option for those want­i­ng to trav­el in com­fort, our rec­om­men­da­tion would be to utilise the First-Class option for extend­ed trav­el, includ­ing overnight, with prices start­ing as a min­i­mum of $800 for a mul­ti­ple leg jour­ney, and extend­ing to up to $1800 Usd for longer jour­neys – includ­ing stretch­ing into Bei­jing and Mon­go­lia.  

With options to suit all trav­ellers, the bud­get for trains will vary by each trav­eller based on their itin­er­ary and the num­ber of stops they take. For those not new to Russ­ian trains do note that while each train has its dif­fer­ent class – the trains them­selves also vary as a whole in qual­i­ty – with low num­bered trains start­ing with 00x being of high­er qual­i­ty but more expen­sive, and those being of a high­er num­ber being less expen­sive and lack­ing in com­fort options – such as air-con­di­tion­ing, wash­rooms etc.  

While both trains will take you along the Trans-Siber­ian route – it’s worth con­sid­er­ing the num­ber of the train you’re board­ing, rel­a­tive to your bud­get, before set­ting off.  

Hav­ing decid­ed on your route, the train class and the train you’re going to take you’ll also need to pur­chase your tick­et – and you can go about this in three main ways; from the tick­et office – which is a great option for those on a flex­i­ble sched­ule plan­ning many stop-offs – online at any num­ber of trav­el agen­cies of through the net­works them­selves – and as part of a guid­ed tour along the rail­way – which while not allow­ing the free­dom of an inde­pen­dent jour­ney, makes for a great choice for those not keen on under­tak­ing the itin­er­ary and prepa­ra­tions required to com­plete a jour­ney on the Trans-Siber­ian net­work.

Pre-Departure Hotel & Hotel Costs : 

Hav­ing got your­self to either Moscow or Bei­jing and hav­ing stocked up on sup­plies as well ahead of your jour­ney, you’ll need to bud­get for a hotel room for at least one night – if not more – depend­ing on the depar­ture times of your train.  

This is again some­thing that can be at the trav­eller’s dis­cre­tion – with those on a bud­get able to find hos­tel accom­mo­da­tion for as lit­tle as $10 – where­as those who fan­cy a good night’s sleep able to bag a more accom­mo­dat­ing hotel room for between $50 — $100 Usd a night in either Moscow or Bei­jing.  

For those stop­ping along the way – which is again some­thing we’d high­ly encour­age, with­in Rus­sia you can again find cheap hos­tels and accom­mo­da­tion start­ing from $10 in most cities – and ris­ing as high as $100 Usd a night for those who are trav­el­ling at a high­er com­fort lev­el.  

While camp­ing is also an option in Perm – for those explor­ing the Ural Moun­tains, or in Irkut­sk – for those tak­ing on the Trans-Mon­go­lian line and enter­ing Ulaan­baatar we’d advise you to increase your night­ly bud­get to between $35 — $75 a night to ensure a good room close to the high­lights of this great city.  

Additional Costs – Visas, Food, Souvenirs, Entries etc:  

Hav­ing got your accom­mo­da­tion, train tick­ets and hotels all booked – you’ll then need to fac­tor in the costs for the logis­ti­cal and addi­tion­al ele­ments of a trip on the Trans-Siber­ian net­work.  

For starters, for those enter­ing Rus­sia, you’ll need to bud­get $65 Usd for a visa – with those head­ing into Mon­go­lia need­ing to bud­get $30 Usd for their visa, and a Chi­nese visa like­ly to set you back between $90 — $120 Usd depend­ing on where you come from.  

You can then bud­get between $5 Usd (for those on a bud­get) to $25 Usd a day for meals per per­son – being sure to stop up on snacks before depar­ture (an extra $2 usd a day) – and put aside around $100 Usd for sou­venirs to com­mem­o­rate your trip on this stun­ning net­work.  

For those stop­ping off along the way – which is, in our view, an essen­tial part of the Trans-Siber­ian jour­ney, you’ll need to up your bud­get a lit­tle – in con­sid­er­a­tion of the fees and charges to enter parks, palaces and tem­ples – and so we’d advise bud­get­ing at least an extra $25 a day to ensure you can expe­ri­ence the wealth of beau­ty, cul­ture and sights along your jour­ney.  

Estimated cost for the Trans-Siberian Network: 

There­fore, while each jour­ney along the Trans-Siber­ian net­work is dif­fer­ent – and the vol­ume of stop-offs, the train class and the dura­tion will define the bud­get, there’s a range of base prices that will be includ­ed in any Trans-Siber­ian trip – regard­less of the length.  

These include the visa cost ($65 – which can rise to $215 depend­ing on your route) your food cost (between $5 — $25) a day, and the sou­venir ($100) and accom­mo­da­tion cost (between $10 — $50) a night, giv­ing a base for essen­tials at between $300 — $1000 Usd for a basic 7‑day trip on the Trans-Siber­ian express.  

Fac­tor in as well arriv­ing – which in the most direct option from the clos­est region can be $100 Usd, from fur­ther away can stretch to $1500 and by util­is­ing the euro-rail can be between $100 — $400 Usd – and you’re look­ing at between $100 — $1500 Usd  extra onto your bud­get before set­ting off.  

You can then fac­tor in an extra $150 (for train trav­el on the short­est route in the cheap­est class) or up to $2000 Usd (for the most expen­sive short­est route) and you’re look­ing again at an extra toll on your bud­get.  

How­ev­er, in con­sid­er­a­tion of most trav­ellers bud­get – and that you can of course stop off and mix up your route and the class you trav­el in, our advice for bud­get­ing for the Trans-Siber­ian would be to take the medi­an base cost of the essen­tials — $700 Usd as a start­ing point – and then adjust your expen­di­ture based on your bud­get.  

With based on the fig­ures above and tak­ing the clas­sic trav­eller route across the Trans-Siber­ian which goes from Moscow to Bei­jing via Ulaan­baatar, with a cou­ple of stops over the course of 10–12 days aver­ag­ing out at around $4000 Usd – not includ­ing get­ting there. The aver­age cost for a 10-day trip using just the Trans-Siber­ian and Trans-Manchuri­an line cost­ing $2500 – not includ­ing get­ting there – and the direct route from Moscow to Vladi­vos­tok cost­ing on aver­age $1250.  

How­ev­er please do bear in mind that these are approx­i­mates and aver­ages, with any route trav­el­ling upon the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work – and the bud­get involved tru­ly being at the dis­cre­tion of the trav­eller and their itin­er­ary – which is part of what makes the won­der of the Trans-Siber­ian such an epic, excit­ing and life-chang­ing adven­ture which any­one can, regard­less of their bud­get, can enjoy.  

Fun Fact: 

An epic adven­ture, the Trans-Siber­ian is not only a life-chang­ing and stun­ning­ly beau­ti­ful jour­ney into and across the wilder­ness and best of Eura­sia, but is in itself a fas­ci­nat­ing line to trav­el upon, with this archi­tec­tur­al feat and the rail lines that make it up, stand­ing as not only a sym­bol of Russ­ian Pride and the last suc­cess­ful Russ­ian Empire project before the rev­o­lu­tion, but one of the most unique des­ti­na­tions on the plan­et, that is blessed with a range of Fun facts and triv­ia.  

Chief among these is undoubt­ed­ly the sheer size of the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work, with the Trans-Siber­ian route and line, which stretch­es from Moscow to Vladi­vos­tok clock­ing in at 9,289 kilo­me­tres in length, the Trans-Mon­go­lian line stretch­ing for a mas­sive 2,215 kilo­me­tres and the Trans-Manchuri­an line stretch­ing for 8,986 kilo­me­tres, with the sheer inge­nu­ity and resources required to build these lines – which were com­plet­ed over a peri­od of  25 years, being not only impres­sive but mak­ing the Trans-Siber­ian net­work a record hold­er for the fastest con­struc­tion of a rail­way line of such size.  

Because of the sheer size of the net­work – that expands beyond the clas­sic three trav­eller routes – a jour­ney on the Trans-Siber­ian net­work can pass through more than 10 time-zones, with those trav­el­ling from east to west head­ing back in time and those trav­el­ling from west to east head­ing for­ward in time.  

Yet whichev­er way you opt to trav­el – for­ward or back in time – one of the beau­ties of the Trans-Siber­ian net­work is the free­dom for a trveller to define their own route and stop-offs, with the Trans-Siber­ian net­work hav­ing a record num­ber of stops for any rail­way – at an incred­i­ble 65 stops, that pass through more than 90 cities, three coun­tries and two con­ti­nents.  

Thanks to these stops trav­ellers can expe­ri­ence the incred­i­ble Ural Moun­tains at Perm – where two con­ti­nents meet, the serene turquoise glacial lake of Lake Baikal, explore the incred­i­ble his­to­ry of Russ­ian in grand palaces and fas­ci­nat­ing muse­ums at Moscow, Kazan and St Peters­burg, roam across the Mon­go­lian Steppe and expe­ri­ence the cul­ture, palaces and stun­ning sights of Bei­jing – while rid­ing on one of the most inter­est­ing, fas­ci­nat­ing and fun won­der of the world of the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work.  

Top Sights & Best photo spots: 

An epic and life-chang­ing jour­ney, a ride on the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work will not only take you across a third of the world, but this stun­ning unpar­al­leled jour­ney will give you the oppor­tu­ni­ty to snap and pho­to­graph the absolute best of Eurasia’s rivers, lakes, moun­tains and plains, take stun­ning shots of the best of Mon­go­lia – includ­ing its famed Steppe, take incred­i­ble pho­tos of rare wildlife, snap his­tor­i­cal­ly and cul­tur­al­ly rich cities and cap­ture amaz­ing won­ders and adren­a­line fuelled mem­o­ries that will not doubt last a life­time.  

A true pho­tog­ra­phers par­adise – and a great option to snap a series of won­ders of the world in one epic adven­ture, the Trans-Siberi­ans net­work flex­i­bil­i­ty and the onus on the explor­er to define their stop-offs and time­line adds to both the unique­ness of every shot and the abil­i­ty of trav­ellers to cap­ture their pic­ture-per­fect moments and the scenery, events and moments that mat­ter to them.  

One of the world’s great­est adven­tures, the pho­to­graph­ic equip­ment need­ed to cap­ture shots across the Trans-Siber­ian net­work – and its stop-offs – is again at the dis­cre­tion and desire of the explor­ers, with basic cam­era phones able to cap­ture stun­ning moments, while those seek­ing more inti­mate and detailed shots encour­aged to bring along high-def­i­n­i­tion equip­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly if head­ing into the wilder­ness of Siberia on their jour­ney. 

How­ev­er, while the dura­tion of your jour­ney, the stop-offs, the loca­tion of shots and the equip­ment need­ed will vary for each trav­eller based on their needs, what is uni­ver­sal is that any jour­ney across the Trnas-Siber­ian, which enables these stun­ning shots, will require an immense amount of plan­ning and thought – espe­cial­ly for those seek­ing to cross more than 10,000 kilo­me­tres of this stun­ning won­der.  

There­fore, to make your pho­to­graph­ic jour­ney across the stun­ning Trans-Siber­ian net­work as easy and suc­cess­ful as pos­si­ble, and to ensure you cap­ture the absolute best of this incred­i­ble won­der of the world, we’ve round­ed up our top sights and stops to pho­to­graph on your epic adven­ture: 

The Trans-Siberian Train & view:

The won­der itself and the con­nect­ing and heart of this epic jour­ney, undoubt­ed­ly one of the thrills and deep moments of any jour­ney across the Trans-Siber­ian net­work is expe­ri­enc­ing and doc­u­ment­ing life on the train itself – which will be your home for at least 7 days.  

Regard­less of the class you and your bud­get opt for, snap­ping shots inside of the train, from the cab­ins to the inte­ri­or, is one of the great moments and mem­o­ries of this jour­ney, as to is snap­ping the tracks and bridges that the trains wind through, allow­ing you to cap­ture the true archi­tec­tur­al feat that is this stun­ning won­der.  

Along­side the tracks, for the keen pho­tog­ra­ph­er we’d also rec­om­mend spend­ing some time at each sta­tion, to cap­ture best of Russ­ian Archi­tec­ture – with the sta­tions of Yaroslavl in Moscow, with its turquoise belt, Omsk, with its bright green exte­ri­or and Ulaan­baatar all being unique, colour­ful and mak­ing for incred­i­ble shots along the way.  

Yet the very epit­o­me of the Trans-Siber­ian net­work and why it is such a life-chang­ing and beau­ti­ful expe­ri­ence, is found, along­side the incred­i­ble stops and des­ti­na­tions, in the scenery from the win­dows as the train rolls along the tracks. Empha­sis­ing the idea that life and the Trans-Siber­ian is amount the jour­ney rather than the des­ti­na­tion, trav­ellers will have time to won­der about their own future and des­ti­na­tion as stun­ning scenery – from tow­er­ing moun­tains, pris­tine forests, rolling Steppe and glacial rivers pass them by.  

With it being this incred­i­ble scenery that defines and rep­re­sents the best of the Trans-Siber­ian and with each shot of this scenery being unique and cap­tur­ing the trav­ellers indi­vid­ual jour­ney – every pho­tog­ra­ph­er and explor­er upon the Trans-Siber­ian net­work should be sure to cap­ture the moments and mem­o­ries from their win­dow that tru­ly under­line why the Trans-Siber­ian net­work is a stun­ning, spec­tac­u­lar and life-chang­ing won­der of the world. 

Moscow: 

Start­ing as every Trans-Siber­ian jour­ney will like­ly do at Moscow – and before depart­ing on the rails, Russia’s cap­i­tal offers a fas­ci­nat­ing and incred­i­ble intro­duc­tion as to the jour­ney, his­to­ry and cul­ture trav­ellers on the Trans-Siber­ian net­work will be explor­ing.  

Chief amongst these is not just the start­ing sta­tion of Yaroslavl in Moscow – which with its turquoise exte­ri­or and charm­ing inte­ri­or makes for stun­ning spot to cap­ture the begin­ning of your jour­ney, but also the sights of Moscow itself, with the twin won­ders of the Red Square and the Krem­lin mak­ing for not only increi­d­ble his­tor­i­cal explo­ration but being one of the must snap pho­tos in this stun­ning city.  

A fan­tas­tic start to any Trans-Siber­ian jour­ney, for those with a lit­tle more time before depart­ing and who to explore the won­der of Mosco fur­ther, we’d rec­om­mend mak­ing time not only for pho­tograph­ing some of the wind­ing high streets and charm­ing clas­sic pubs, but also head­ing to the Bol­shoi The­atre, where stun­ning inte­ri­or that rep­re­sents the absolute best of Russ­ian Archi­tec­ture awaits you.  

You’ll also find stun­ning archi­tec­ture and a chance to explore and jour­ney through Russ­ian his­to­ry and cul­ture – as well as snap fur­ther incred­i­ble shots of the best of Russ­ian archi­tec­ture and art at the great Russ­ian Muse­um of The State Tretyakov Gallery – which is our pick for under­stand­ing and snap­ping not only the best of Russ­ian his­to­ry, but also the promi­nence and impor­tance of the Trans-Siber­ian net­work to Rus­sia and the road ahead.  

St Petersburg: 

For those with more time at the start of their jour­ney, and who want to sam­ple the delights of the Russ­ian rail­way, while explore one of the world’s most pho­to­genic and stun­ning cities – we’d encour­age you to take an increi­d­ble day trip to explore the great city of St. Peters­burg — Russia’s win­dow to the West.  

Found­ed by Peter the Great, any pho­tog­ra­phy explo­ration of St Peters­burg should first head to the incred­i­ble palaces of this great city – and espe­cial­ly make time to snap the stun­ning f Peter­gof and Pavlovsk palaces, whose explo­ration offer an incred­i­ble insight and under­stand­ing into the his­to­ry and cul­ture of Rus­sia.  

As well as tak­ing time to explore and pho­to­graph the stun­ning cob­bled streets and archi­tec­tur­al won­ders of the many build­ings of St. Peters­burg, you can also get incred­i­ble snaps of some of the best of Russ­ian art and arti­facts at the Her­mitage Muse­um, whose exte­ri­or alone is a tri­umph of increi­d­ble archi­tec­ture and well wor­thy of tak­ing to time to prop­er­ly pho­to­graph.  

For those want­i­ng to expe­ri­ence and snap the best of Russia’s art and cul­tur­al scene, then we’d encour­age you to head to the world-class and icon­ic Mari­in­sky The­atre — which with its stun­ning inte­ri­or makes for a tru­ly stun­ning way to cap­ture the best of Russ­ian Archi­tec­ture – and for those for­tu­nate enough to watch a show, the absolute best of Russ­ian the­atre.  

Kazan 

Hav­ing board­ed the Trans-Siber­ian express and made your way slow­ly away from Moscow on the begin­ning of your jour­ney, one of the first oppor­tu­ni­ties – and major stops along the way is the fas­ci­nat­ing city of Kazan.  

Lying on the banks of both the Riv­er Kazan­ka and Riv­er Vol­ga, this incred­i­ble city makes for a stun­ning shot on approach – where you’ll be able to cap­ture the light and the city reflect­ing of the waters of both rivers. For those with enough time and who are lucky enough to spend a few days explor­ing Kazan, we’d encour­age you to head to Kazan’s own Krem­lin com­plex – a fas­ci­nat­ing bright white citadel that offers not only stun­ning views over the riv­er but a chance to explore some increi­d­ble muse­ums and dive deeply into the his­to­ry of Rus­sia.  

A place also where Chris­t­ian and Mus­lim cul­tures and archi­tec­ture mix, this stun­ning spot – that dates back to the 16th cen­tu­ry, is undoubt­ed­ly the pho­tog­ra­phy high­light of Kazan and is grand enough to rival the Krem­lin itself, with the Kazan Krem­lin, com­bined with the pho­to­genic rivers and the green­ery of  Kazan’s Mil­le­ni­um park mak­ing a wor­thy and must snap stop along any Trans-Siber­ian jour­ney.  

Yekaterinburg:

A great stop for the keen pho­tog­ra­phers and explor­ers, the city of Yeka­ter­in­burg not only cap­tures the archi­tec­ture and life of Rus­sia before the Sovi­et rev­o­lu­tion – but under­lines the scale and grandeur of a jour­ney on the Trans-Siber­ian express, with it being with­in Yeka­ter­in­burg that you can find the offi­cial Europe and Asia bor­der – mak­ing for an incred­i­ble shot as you pho­to­graph not only the bor­der, but as you stand with feet in two con­ti­nents.  

An icon­ic shot, and one that will undoubt­ed­ly fea­ture in any high­light reel of the Trans-Siber­ian expe­ri­ence, for those who have snapped a pho­to stood in both Europe and Asia, we’d then encour­age you to explore the streets of Yeka­ter­in­burg – tak­ing in the grand archi­tec­ture and cob­bled streets, with those inter­est­ed in his­to­ry encour­aged to vis­it the sev­en Gan­i­na Yama monas­ter­ies that pay trib­ute to the Tsar Nicholas II and his fam­i­ly – and espe­cial­ly the Church of the Blood – where you can observe and snap the exact snap where the Tsars were over­thrown and mur­dered – with there even being an exact spot that makes the loca­tion of their deaths, which makes for a unique, if grue­some, mon­u­ment.  

Perm and the Ural Mountains:

The first taste of the wilder­ness and wild­ness of the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work, the Ural Moun­tains pro­vide some of the most stun­ning scenery along the jour­ney, with these tow­er­ing peaks – which in the sum­mer pro­vide a quaint par­adise filled with green grass and rolling riv­er, and in the win­ter are stun­ning­ly snow-capped – being tru­ly pho­to­graph­ic and pro­vid­ing great shots.  

Typ­i­cal­ly pho­tographed from the win­dows of the Trans-Siber­ian net­work and pro­vid­ing a per­fect back­drop for the tran­quil­li­ty and reflec­tion that this jour­ney has become syn­ony­mous with, for those with a lit­tle bit of extra time and who fan­cy get­ting up close and per­son­al to the Ural Moun­tains – whose peaks stretch almost 2,000 metres, we’d encour­age you to stop off at the indus­tri­al city of Perm.  

Off the beat­en track, Perm for decades was closed to the pub­lic due to the mil­i­tary com­pa­nies that reside here (and it’s nec­es­sary to check in advance if it’s open) how­ev­er for explor­ers it pro­vides a per­fect place to utilise as a base to explore the Ural moun­tains – where you can ski, hike, horse ride and even raft along this incred­i­ble moun­tain range – being sure to cap­ture the stun­ning scenery of the Ural moun­tains and great mem­o­ries along your way. 

Krasnoyarsk:

A clas­sic stop-off on the Trans-Siber­ian jour­ney, the great pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ties and explo­ration oppor­tu­ni­ties at Kras­no­yarsk lie not with­in the city itself – but in the Stol­by Nature Sanc­tu­ary that lies a short bus ride away, and where you’ll find tow­er­ing vol­canic moun­tain boul­ders backed by a scenery of serene and qui­et wood­en hills – which makes for stun­ning place to not only enjoy the best of Russ­ian nature, but snap incred­i­ble pho­tos of Russ­ian wilder­ness and nature at its best.  

Explorable on a day-trip – and for the adven­tur­ous offer­ing boul­der climb­ing and ski­ing, the Stol­by Nature Sanc­tu­ary is best pho­tographed at sun­set from one of the many panoram­ic view­points or climb­ing hikes avail­able – with it being from here that you can cap­ture the gold­en sun light­ing up the wood­lands mak­ing for spec­tac­u­lar shot.  

Along­side the Stol­by Nature Sanc­tu­ary, Kras­no­yarsk also offers a chance to expe­ri­ence and snap every­day Russ­ian cul­ture, with the quaint Paraske­va Pyat­nit­sa Chapel being worth an explo­ration, along­side the Siber­ian Riv­er and for those who enjoy panaromic city shots the climbable Mount Karul­naya – from where you can cap­ture a stun­ning shot of the whole of the indus­tri­al city of Kras­no­yarsk for a great shot of a true Russ­ian city.  

Altai Mountains:

Back on the Trans-Siber­ian rails and ven­tur­ing deep­er into the heart of Siberia, the views of the wilder­ness and plains will give way to the beau­ti­ful and iso­lat­ed peaks of the Altai Moun­tains which con­nect Mon­go­lia, Rus­sia and Chi­na togeth­er.  

A stun­ning spot, this is one of the spots on the Trans-Siber­ian that is weath­er depen­dent for pho­tog­ra­phers, with those vis­it­ing in the win­ter sea­son like­ly to encounter thick vol­canic ter­rain and chal­leng­ing con­di­tions, lend­ing for pho­tographs from the train win­dow itself.  

Where as those who trav­el in the spring, sum­mer or Autumn get­ting the chance to expe­ri­ence the Altai moun­tains at their absolute best – with clear sky’s brin­ing to life not only the snow capped peaks, but the charm­ing reflec­tive lakes and rolling green mead­ows, which can make for stun­ning shots.  

Offi­cial­ly Asia’s geo­graph­i­cal heart, for those with a lit­tle extra time and want­i­ng the extra spe­cial pho­tos of the Altai Moun­tains, we’d encour­age you to make a stop-off at the town of Bar­naul, which makes for a fan­tas­tic spot to ven­ture into and explore these stun­ning moun­tains. With the warm con­di­tions in the spring-autumn months bring­ing alive the scenery and allow­ing for hik­ing, camp­ing and rid­ing – all of which will allow you not only incred­i­ble expe­ri­ences in the heart of Asia, but pro­vide you with stun­ning access to cap­ture incred­i­bly scenic pho­tos of the gor­geous Altai Moun­tains.  

Lake Baikal:

One of the undoubt­ed high­lights of the Trans-Siber­ian jour­ney, the stun­ning won­der of Lake Baikal is both a must stop and must pho­to­graph loca­tion on your incred­i­ble jour­ney.  

Offi­cial­ly the deep­est fresh­wa­ter lake in the world, and one of the most ancient, this incred­i­ble lake – which in the win­ter is frozen over and the spring – Autumn sea­son is a deep turquoise blue, is incred­i­bly scenic and home to some of the best wildlife on the plan­et – includ­ing the cam­era friend­ly, and very loud, Baikal Seals – a true sta­ple of this icon­ic lake.  

Found in the heart of Siberia Lake Baikal, is as grand as it is beau­ti­ful, with those vis­it­ing in win­ter able to get incred­i­ble shots not just of the arc­tic con­di­tions and reflec­tive ice, but of them­selves actu­al­ly stand­ing and walk­ing on the ice, as well tak­ing on new adven­tures includ­ing snow­mo­bil­ing or dog-sled­ding, both of which see you get up close and per­son­al to this great lake – and make for incred­i­ble shots.  

For those vis­it­ing out­side the win­ter and frozen sea­son, you’ll find the lake at its most serene and peace­ful, with scu­ba div­ing, kayak­ing and lake cruis­es all on offer – which again lend to not only a great explo­ration but stun­ning shots, with cap­tur­ing the beau­ty of Lake Baikal at either or both sun­rise and sun­set, being a high­ly rec­om­mend­ed way of cap­tur­ing the best of Lake Baikal.  

Eas­i­ly accessed from the town of Irkut­sk, for those with a lit­tle more time we’d encour­age you to con­sid­er spend­ing a cou­ple of days explor­ing lake Baikal to guar­an­teed the best shots, with the charm­ing and idyl­lic wood­en huts that dot the shore­line of Lake Baikal mak­ing for a spe­cial place to stay on this unique won­der.  

For those who do opt to stay at this fresh­wa­ter par­adise, one top we’d real­ly rec­om­mend for explo­ration and pho­tog­ra­phy is the Olkhon Island – who, with its cres­cent moon beach, makes for an idyl­lic place to rest-up and observe and pho­to­graph a series of Bud­dhist carv­ing and rocks, before con­tin­u­ing your jour­ney onwards on the Trans-Siber­ian express, with the stun­ning won­der of Lake Baikal behind you.  

Ulan-Ude:

A unique city, and a throw­back to the orig­i­nal Trans-Siber­ian line, the town of Ulan Ude was orig­i­nal­ly found­ed as an out-post, but now serves as a fas­ci­nat­ing city where east meets west, and marks one of the key and best Siber­ian Cities on your jour­ney.  

Explor­ing Ulan-Ude and you’ll come across not only a top-rat­ed piz­za par­lour, but also the first of the two explo­ration and pho­tog­ra­phy high­lights of this great city, the Ivol­gin­sky Dat­san – a Bud­dhist monastery that lies on the out­skirts of town that is backed by a series of stun­ning moun­tains, and which makes for an incred­i­ble pho­to­graph.  

As well as being tru­ly pho­to­genic, for those seek­ing to explore Russ­ian his­to­ry and cul­ture on their jour­ney along the Trans-Siber­ian net­work, the Ivol­gin­sky Dat­san is one of the most impor­tant and spir­i­tu­al build­ings along the way. With this bud­dhist tem­ple being not only the heart of Siber­ian Bud­dhism, but also rep­re­sent­ing the evo­lu­tion of Russ­ian his­to­ry and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, as it stands as a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the re-intro­duc­tion of Bud­dhism with­in Rus­sia fol­low­ing the fall of the Sovi­et Union.  

Mov­ing from one impor­tant cul­tur­al sym­bol to anoth­er, the sec­ond major high­light and pho­tog­ra­phy spot with­in Ulan-Ude, is one of the most pop­u­lar across the whole of the Trans-Siber­ian net­work, the Giant Lenin Head stat­ue. Stand­ing at an impos­ing 7.7 metres and weigh­ing more than 40 tonnes, the Giant Lenin Head stat­ue is not only the biggest Lenin head stat­ue in the world, but marks one of the must have pho­tographs on any jour­ney across the Trans-Siber­ian net­work and is well worth the stop with­in the town of Ulan-Ude.  

Vladivostok:

For those trav­el­ling the full length of the orig­i­nal Trans-Siber­ian rail­way line, the indus­tri­al down of Vladi­vos­tok marks the end of the line and the final stop on your Trans-Siber­ian jour­ney.  

A town build on indus­try, Vladivostok’s beau­ty is found both with­in the accom­plish­ment of com­plet­ing the Trans-Siber­ian jour­ney – with a pho­to at the town’s sign and train sta­tion a must have to mark your com­ple­tion of the jour­ney – and in the fresh sea­side air that awaits you on its coast.  

It’s also at this sea­side port that explor­ers seek­ing more adven­ture can trav­el onwards across Asia, with their being reg­u­lar boats from Vladi­vos­tok to both South Korea and Japan, mak­ing for a unique way to extend any Trans-Siber­ian jour­ney.  

A town blessed with charm­ing cob­bled hilly streets, and with a series of top-class restau­rants and hotels, Vladi­vos­tok makes a pic­ture per­fect and great way to round out any trip on the Trans-Siber­ian line.  

Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia):

For those tak­ing on the clas­sic Trans-Siber­ian rail­way route and divert­ing from the Trans-Siber­ian rail­way line to the Trans-Mon­go­lian line, this route will take you through some of the great Mon­go­lian Steppe – pass­ing wild rivers, untouched grass­lands and through the plains of Mon­go­lia to one of the great and mys­te­ri­ous cities on earth, the cap­i­tal of Mon­go­lia, Ulaan­baatar.  

Home to Genghis (pro­nounced Chin-Gis) Khan, Ulaan­baatar has under­gone a mod­ern trans­for­ma­tion over the last decade, turn­ing it from a once untouched and under­de­vel­oped city into a city of moder­ni­ty, but which still retains its iden­ti­ty and cul­tur­al her­itage. Because of this Ulaan­baatar is a trav­ellers and pho­tog­ra­phers dream, offer­ing a chance to explore and pho­to­graph stun­ning palaces – includ­ing the famed win­ter palace of Bogd Khan – a three sto­ry high palace that is par­tic­u­lar­ly stun­ning at sun­rise and home to six incred­i­ble tem­ples and arti­facts of Bogd Khan – a for­mer ruler of Mon­go­lia.  

A fas­ci­nat­ing insight into Mon­go­lian his­to­ry, Ulaan­baatar is also home to a series of great and pho­to­genic tem­ples, includ­ing the grand Gan­dan Khi­id, which allows for an explo­ration of the reli­gious and iden­ti­fy of the Mon­go­lian Peo­ple.  

Yet undoubt­ed­ly the major attrac­tion and pho­to stop with­in Ulaan­baatar is the main Sukhbaatar Square, a place not just for meet­ing and sur­round­ed by inspired Mon­go­lian archi­tec­ture – but home to one of the great pho­to spots on the Trans-Siber­ian net­work, the mon­u­ment to Genghis Khan.  

A tow­er­ing stat­ue and a great pho­to spot to cap­ture a tru­ly glob­al and influ­en­tial fig­ure, explor­ing the won­ders of Ulaan­baatar and the great stat­ue of Genghis Khan is a great way to top off your stay in Ulaan­baatar, with those on lim­it­ed time then able to re-board to train towards Bei­jing, or for those with a lit­tle bit more time able to dive fur­ther into the wilder­ness, deserts and steppe of this incred­i­ble coun­try.  

The best of Mongolia (Steppe, Statues & Parks): 

Explor­ing Mon­go­lia out­side of Ulaan­baatar is a chance for every trav­eller to con­nect with wilder­ness and go tru­ly off the beat­en track, with those lucky enough to have enough time to ven­ture out of Ulaan­baatar for a cou­ple of days – or even longer – guar­an­teed to encounter stun­ning land­scapes, friend­ly locals, fas­ci­nat­ing wildlife and thrilling adven­tures.  

While there’s a range of options to choose from, the high­lights (in our view) begin with a trip to the Terelj Nation­al Park, which is a great option for a day trip from Ulaan­baatar and which is home to some of the best of the Mon­go­lian Steppe – includ­ing tow­er­ing hills and rolling green fields and val­leys – for a pho­tog­ra­ph­er and explor­ers dream.  

A place lend­ing itself to stun­ning pho­to­graph, the Terelj Nation­al park can be explored by car, foot and on horse­back – and whichev­er way you opt to explore this great park, it’s like­ly that all roads will led to the giant 40 metre stat­ue of Genghis Khan, who is depict­ed rid­ing into bat­tle on his horse the might Khi­id and which stands as a sym­bol of the great Mon­go­lian icon.  

Par­tic­u­lar­ly pho­to­genic in win­ter, where great snow­fall will see the stat­ue cov­ered in win­ter snow, Terelj Nation­al Park is also a great place to snap an icon­ic pho­to of a Yurt, with those adven­tur­ous enough even able to spend a night with­in one – for a tru­ly unfor­get­table expe­ri­ence.  

While so much of the Mon­go­lian Steppe rep­re­sents a chal­lenge to reach – and is per­haps out of bounds and scope for those trav­el­ling on the Trans-Siber­ian Net­work, one oth­er great stop, that gives explor­ers the chance to expe­ri­ence a dif­fer­ent but equal­ly stun­ning side of Mon­go­lia is the Gobi Desert.  

Found in Mongolia’s south and acces­si­ble by either a 90 minute domes­tic flight or a full days dri­ve, the Gobi Desert is an oasis of stun­ning dunes, low moun­tains and deep sandy desert, with the sun­rise and sun­sets here dur­ing all sea­sons being par­tic­u­lar­ly stun­ning and pho­to­genic.  

A place that turns white in the win­ter and comes alive to the beau­ty of the sun in sum­mer, there’s no bad time to vis­it the Gobi Desert – with each sea­son being stun­ning in its own unique way. How­ev­er for those, want­i­ng an extra spe­cial shot that will tru­ly last a life­time – we’d encour­age you to come in the sum­mer sea­son – where, if you’re incred­i­bly lucky, you’ll get to pho­to­graph not only the bizarre look­ing Bac­tri­an camels – but also the rare snow leop­ard — for a pho­to that will tru­ly last a life­time.  

Naddam Festival 

As well as explor­ing the best of the Monoglian Steppe, park and the cap­i­tal of Ulaan­baatar, explor­ers trav­el­ling the Trans-Siber­ian net­work and head­ing into Mon­go­lia can time their vis­it to coin­cide with one of the most unique and spe­cial fes­ti­vals on the plan­et – the Mon­go­lian Nad­dam fes­ti­val.  

Occur­ring every year between the 10th-12th July, and requir­ing tick­ets to be pur­chased in advance, the Nad­dam Fes­ti­val is a fes­ti­val like no oth­er – see­ing three days of the ‘the three games of men’ as Mongolia’s top ath­letes com­pete against each oth­er in wrestling, horserac­ing and archery to crown the win­ner of the games.  

A fas­ci­nat­ing spec­ta­cle and com­pe­ti­tion, and one that lends itself to tru­ly unique pho­tos, those attend­ing the Nad­dam games can expect a tra­di­tion­al open­ing and clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny as well as plen­ty of tra­di­tion­al dances, singing and per­for­mances. With this unique fes­ti­val tru­ly show­cas­ing the absolute best of Nomadic and Mon­go­lian cul­ture and being one of the tru­ly great expe­ri­ences and pho­tog­ra­phy oppor­tu­ni­ties avail­able on the Trans-Siber­ian net­work – and one we’d encour­age all trav­ellers to plan their trip around.  

For more on the Nad­dam Fes­ti­val – Click Here.  

Beijing:

The clas­sic end­point for the Trans-Siber­ian adven­ture – and the end of the line for the Trans-Manchuri­an and Mon­go­lian Lines, Bei­jing is undoubt­ed­ly one of the world’s great­est, cul­tur­al­ly rich, his­tor­i­cal­ly, and tru­ly stun­ning cities – and a fit­ting end to this epic jour­ney.  

For those arriv­ing into Bei­jing, and hav­ing cleared cus­toms before­hand, we’d encour­age you to first­ly make sure you get a pic­ture or self­ie at the rail sta­tion and end point of this incred­i­ble – and like­ly 2 to 3 week — jour­ney, which will mark the bit­ter­sweet end of your great adven­ture.  

Hav­ing cap­tured this great moment, that will be tru­ly life defin­ing, we’d then encour­age you to enjoy the absolute best of the stun­ning won­ders of Bei­jing, mak­ing sure you take in one of the great won­ders of the world in the Great Wall of Chi­na, which lies just a bus ride away from the cap­i­tal and mak­ing time to vis­it the gate of Heav­en­ly Peace which leads to the equal­ly stun­ning won­der of the For­bid­den City – with both sights offer­ing their own unique adven­ture and the chance to cap­ture incred­i­ble pho­tos of some of the worlds great­est cul­tur­al icons.  

Along­side these two won­ders, we’d encour­age you to explore the rich and cul­tur­al his­to­ry of Bei­jing – mak­ing time to stop and explore the Sum­mer Palace and its stun­ning lake, which pre­fects a per­fect place to snap reflec­tive pho­tos of the great Tem­ple of Heav­en of the tow­er – in what is one of the great and most beau­ti­ful pho­tos in Bei­jing and on the Trans-Siber­ian rail­way.  

Final­ly, along­side explor­ing the charm­ing streets of Bei­jing and snap­ping the vibrant street life, food mar­kets and incred­i­ble archi­tec­ture found through the city – hav­ing trav­elled tens of days and crossed a third of the world, no end­ing to the Trans-Siber­ian jour­ney would be com­plete with­out a great meal – and a drink or two – in one of Beijing’s many excel­lent restau­rants, with a snap and expe­ri­ence of toast­ing and cel­e­brat­ing your suc­cess­ful and epic adven­ture being one of the great moments of your jour­ney on the stun­ning won­der of the world that is the Trans-Siber­ian net­work.