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Q: Any Europeans ever thought about driving home ?
E.g. Guangzhou to Berlin, all you need is a tankful of gas, a visa to Russia, Belarus and some tunes on the stereo ... and another tankful of gas.... and another.... and another.... possibly a change of wheels.
I have met a guy and his wife that claim to have driven a camper van from Europe to HK via a very indirect route and over a period of six months.
Scandinavian:
6 months will take you far.
I was inspired by this couple
https://www.facebook.com/GuntherandChristineHoltorf
Im spanierd. Some years before i was driving around europe, if you have a nice car and you take it easy it is a nice experience. From china to spain, i should cross the middle east countries i think very scary, i dont want to be kidnaped for the IS
Scandinavian:
that would be why I would opt for Russia rather than the middle east. Sure a breakdown in the middle of nowhere in Russia could lead to a kidnapping or the likes, but I certainly favor that over IS style decapitation.
Shanghai - Paris... If I had the time for it, that would be super nice. I would do it with a simple, robust car like a Lada Niva. I would have a tent, sleeping bag and basic cooking hardware. We would go South of Russia but North of Middle-East nations. After cruising through the Xinjiang province, I would go across Uzbekhistan, Kazakhstan, Armenia, etc. I think speaking some Russian would very helpful, good mechanic skills too. Once Poland or Turkey reached, it's piece of cake.
Not European, but this sounds like fun. And why not? We've driven from the East Cost to the West Coast in 5 1/2 days.
Scandinavian:
a good winter to freeze the Bering strait and the Americans can play the game too, albeit possibly more difficult to survive.
I do not think you can drive in other countries without their driver's license.
icnif77:
International DL
, however for Americans there is a special driving test
. I heard
ever want to do it..call me.... I'll be there.... and it can be done in a couple weeks ... never done it ..but I have seen a lot of North America by car.
I'm not a keen driver, but I would like to do the train trip on the trans-Siberia line. Beijing to Moscow then onward.
Scandinavian:
yeah, the train trip would be sweet too, maybe car one way and train the other way :)
ScotsAlan:
I would do it train one way and cargo ship the other.
http://flightlesstravel.com/plan/cargo-ships/
Weeks at sea away from everything.
Or if you drive there, put your car in a container and travel back with it. All the better if the two stages combined to be a circumnavigation 
Scandinavian:
yeah. Hong Kong to Rotterdam on a giant ship, with nothing to do but relax and look at the ocean (with a stop here and there for 5 hours of sightseeing)
Can I reverse that, I have on several occasion actually thought driving here to China from the UK. In fact my wife joked about it last week. As I am always on ebay checking out the Classic Cars. Two week before coming here to China I bought a Range Rover 4.6. so it sat at home for 2 years. My daughter used it little as she said it was too expensive to run, and my brother complained about it sitting an going to waste. So Yes I had thought about driving it here. That was until I returned home for a break as someone offered to by it for what I had paid, so I sold it. However I have on occasions still held the same thought. I know that someone from the UK actually completed the journey UK t Beijing just about 18 months past, in an 1965 Triumph Toledo 1300 which he had restored.
Yeah, this is something that has been simmering in my head since long before I moved to China. I've even researched potential routes, made budgets and so on, but so far I'm lacking time, money and willing travel partners
I'm a sucker for epic road trips really. I've read tons of travel logs of amazin road trips, I remeber there was a Danish couple, he got a job in Singapore so they drove their Land Rover there. Another favorite story is a British guy who bought a bright red Corvette and drove it to Vietnam with a buddy in an old Rolls Royce.
Scandinavian:
routeplanning made easy
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Asian_Highways.png
Burak43:
Driving to Japan by North Korea, holy shit, that'd be something
Scandinavian:
one thing I haven't looked into. Chinese plates differ hugely from other countries as they have the Chinese character first. I wonder if that is allowed outside of China (e.g. it is hardly even allowed in Hong Kong)
It might be a way to stomp the police when speeding through Europe.
Burak43:
I don't think that would be too big of a problem if all your papers are otherwise in order. London and Paris gets invaded by rich arab kids in their Ferraris and Bugattis and some exaples of ME plates:
Qatar: http://www.licenseplateshistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/pic10.png
Dubai: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_the_United_Arab_Emirates#mediaviewer/File:Dubai_license_plate_back.JPG
Abu Dhabi: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/Abu_Dhabi_Plate_Number.jpeg/150px-Abu_Dhabi_Plate_Number.jpeg
A Swiss friend of mine got a job in Australia a few years ago and decided to drive out there from Switzerland. He had an old Volvo station wagion and drove through Eastern Europe, Middle East and India all the way to Thailand, from where he shipped the car to Australia, then drove around the whole of Oz before shipping it back to Switzerland. Still has it. The trip took three months.
I also met a couple a few years ago, the guy is South Africa and his wife is Chinese - they use four Lad Rover Discovery's to take tourists on an annual trip along the Silk Route, from Venice to Beijing. Cost was then around 30k Euros per person. Now that is a good way to make money.
Driving home? Sometimes I think about sneaking out in the middle of the night and walking.
In actual fact i've never considered such a drive but we do plan to do the trans Siberian in about three years with the kids.
I hitchhiked from here to France once taking the southern rout (SE Asia, India, Middle east, eastern Europe) it was fun, taught me a lot and very cheap. A friend of mine sometimes drives back and forth, he has a 1800 liter gas tank and fills it up in Iran, where 1 liter is something around .03Euro cents
Scandinavian:
does your friend happen to have a blog or something about his trips. sounds awesome.... could he e.g. get me a couple of boxes of beer from Germany ?
Burak43:
When did you/your friend take your trips? I can't imagine Pakistan or Afganistan being safe in the past 10-12 years
TedDBayer:
What is the 1800 litre tank in? A tanker truck? That would weigh about 3000 lbs !!
You'd have to carry about that much in beer also, doesn't look like there are a lot of stores
airyk:
It's a big European camper van. He does have a blog but I don't know what it is at the moment, I'll send him and email and get back to you when I know. Pakistan and Afghanistan are not the ideal countries to go into, but you can go. I know many hitchhikers who have went through both, In Pakistan you are required to have a fully loaded government escort. As you can imagine, this makes hitchhiking very difficult, so most hitchhikers, and likely everyone else just ignores this regulation.
A friend of mine races rally cars. He built a 55 Chevy to do the Peking to Paris 2015 Rally. The car was a 4 door that he had modified to a 2 door and the rest the car was put together like crap.
TedDBayer:
http://www.endurorally.com/pages/5th-peking-to-paris-rally-2013
TedDBayer:
I just sold my 38, found one that did the P2P rally https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSwnIK0C2ts3gxaP7ojAnPLjFCGpNReI64-iUubRVqPP70lWM24GA
