The five ’Stans on a budget
This item appears on page 51 of the June 2014 issue.
A travel buddy and I spent a full month in spring 2013 traveling from Bishkek to Tbilisi in the “five ’Stans” and the Caucasus, and we did it for a whole lot less than the “approximately $10,000 per person” plus international air for a 16-day trip that a traveler wrote about in the article “A Silk Road Journey, 25 Years in the Making” (April ’14, pg. 6).
To do it took a year of planning, paying close attention to obtaining visas and also having to purchase a brief “tour” of Turkmenistan, but my share was $3,393 plus 90,000 Mileage Plus miles for a ticket on Turkish Airlines.
Of the countries we visited in the 30 days, Uzbekistan and Georgia were the most interesting, but side trips into Nagorno-Karabakh and Abkhazia were memorable.
I would be glad to email a PDF file of my 40 typed pages of journal entries to anyone who asks. My email address is cboyer3154@yahoo.com.
CARL BOYER
Santa Clarita, CA