You won't be the first passenger to have left from St Pancras for Australia!

Europe to Australia without flying...

It's a long way to Oz.  There are two options to get there from the UK without flying:

Option 1, Europe to Australia via the Trans-Siberian Railway.  You can travel by train from London to Moscow, then by Trans-Siberian Railway to China & the Far East, then catch a passenger-carrying freighter (if you can find one!) or cruise ship to Australia.  This is a real adventure, and a popular choice with lots to see on the way.  Not currently feasible because of the war in Ukraine & Russia being off limits.

Option 2, Europe to Australia by sea.  You can go all the way from the UK to Australia or New Zealand by sea, either a leisurely direct voyage by infrequent round-the-world cruise, or by one of the few remaining passenger-carrying freighters, sometimes with the need to switch ships in either the USA or SE Asia.  Expect Europe to Australia by sea to take at least 32-40 days and cost at least £4,000+ one-way by freighter including cabin & meals, much more if you use a cruise.

This page outlines the journey and how to go about putting such a trip together, with links to other pages for more detailed information about each part of the journey.  Please remember this is not a tour or a package, just some guidance in putting your own independent trip together using scheduled train services across Europe and Asia.

By freighter or cruise ship

If you'd been going to Australia in the first half of the 20th century, you could have caught the fortnightly P&O liner from Southampton to Sydney, taking several weeks.  These days there are no regular passenger ships from the UK or Europe to Australia, and your choice is limited to one of these, if currently operating:

• There are occasional round-the-world cruises from Europe to Australia, stopping at various places on the way.  Some sail westward around the world via the Panama Canal, others sail eastwards via either the Suez Canal or South Africa and the Cape of Good Hope.  This is the most comfortable but expensive option.

• There are freighters which take a limited number of passengers although they are now getting very thin on the ground.  There are a mere handful of direct Europe-Australia freighters which carry a few passengers, or there are freighters from Europe to SE Asia where you can change onto another freighter or a cruise ship from SE Asia to Australia.

• You can take the Queen Mary 2 from Europe to New York (or use a passenger-carrying freighter), take a train from coast to coast across the United States, then take a passenger-carrying freighter to Australia from the Pacific seaboard of the USA. 

To find out more, and to book a cruise or freighter passage to Australia, try the following sites:

• thecruisepeople.wordpress.com have a specific page for Europe to Australia by sea.

• www.freightercruises.com. 

Overland to the Far East by train

It's possible to travel most of the way from London to Australia by train via the Trans-Siberian Railway.  In fact, quite a number people travel this way.  Time-wise, we're talking 4-5 weeks one-way, minimum.  But it's a journey of a lifetime.

Update 2024:  There is a war in Ukraine, travel to Russia is inadvisable, there are currently no international trains to Moscow and no Moscow-Beijing trains.

Route, timetable & costs

Travel tickets alone costs only £750 or so from London as far as Singapore, but you must add food, hotels, and tours along the way.  The links below cover travel in either direction, from London to Australia or Australia to London, follow the links to see details of prices and timetables for each section.

• Step 1:  London to Moscow by train.  Daily departures taking 2 nights.  Spend at least 1 night in Moscow.

• Step 2:  Moscow to Beijing by Trans-Siberian Railway  Two direct trains every week each taking 6 nights.  Spend at least 1 night in Beijing.

• Step 3:  Beijing to Hanoi by train A train runs twice a week taking 2 nights, or you can travel any day with a change of train at Nanning.  Spend at least 1 night in Hanoi.

• Step 4:  Hanoi to Saigon by train  Several trains daily, 2 nights.  Why not stop off to see Hue or Hoi An?  Spend at least 1 night in Saigon.

• Step 5:  Saigon-Phnom Penh by bus Daily, 1 day.  Spend at least 1 night in PP.

• Step 6:  Phnom Penh-Bangkok by bus to the border at Poiphet, then local train from Aranyaprathet to Bangkok.

• Step 7:  Bangkok to Singapore by train.  Daily, 2 nights.

• Step 8:  The final sea voyage from Asia to Australia is the problem:

  You can get from Singapore as far as Bali in Indonesia by scheduled ferry, train, ferry & bus using the ferries from Singapore to Jakarta, see the Indonesia page.  But there are no regular passenger ships to Australia from Singapore or Indonesia or anywhere in the Far East.  And don't bother trying to island hop down to Dili in East Timor, it may look the closest land to Darwin, but there are absolutely no ferries of any kind from there to Australia.

  You therefore need an infrequent passenger-carrying freighter for the last leg from Southeast Asia to Australia.  There are one or two Asia-Australia freighters that will carry passengers.  They have very very few passenger places and get booked up, so book early.  Freighter travel is not cheap, with limited places in high demand.  Also bear in mind that schedules can change according to freight requirements, a ship can easily leave a day or two earlier than originally scheduled, so build in plenty of leeway!

  Option 1, shipping company CMA CGM have freight ships which carry a limited number of passengers between Port Klang in Malaysia & Fremantle near Perth in Australia every 46 days or so.  The voyage takes 7-10 days and costs around €1,300 for one person in a private cabin with meals included.  CMA CGM also have ships between Singapore & Brisbane roughly once a month taking 14 days.  Contact them directly via their website, www.voyagesencargo.com.  Various agencies can also book this freighter route for you, presumably with an added fee or mark-up, such as thecruisepeople.wordpress.com & www.traveltips.com.

  Option 2, try German agency www.slowtravel-experience.com who can offer infrequent sailings between Singapore & Fremantle near Perth on the ship MOL Guardian.

  Option 3, talk to Swiss company www.shipntrain.ch.  They have twice-monthly freighter sailings from Singapore to Fremantle (Perth) taking 7 days.  Their website is in German, so use Google language tools to translate it.  They also have a monthly Singapore-Melbourne freighter taking 15 days.

• Feedback on freighter booking & travel would be appreciated.

How to plan & arrange this trip

There aren't any travel agencies who can arrange the whole trip from Europe to Australia, so you will need to plan and arrange each stage of the journey yourself.  It's an exercise in project management, and I use a simple spreadsheet technique like this to plan an itinerary and budget.  Unless time is absolutely no object, you should book the key sections in advance through various travel agencies, for example, book London-Moscow as shown on the London to Russia page, then book Moscow-Beijing & Beijing-Hanoi through a local Russian agency such as Svezhy Veter.  You also need to pre-book the freighter from Asia to Australia, as places are limited.  Tickets for other parts of the trip, for example, Hanoi-Saigon-Phnom Penh-Bangkok can all be bought locally, as you go along.  The place to start is the sea section from Asia to Australia, as that will determine the dates for the rest of the trip.

Visas

You'll need to pre-arrange visas for Belarus, Russia, possibly Mongolia, China & Vietnam.  Cambodian visas can be obtained at the frontier.  In many ways, complying with the various visa requirements (and in some cases, requirements for confirmed onward tickets to be held) is actually the biggest hassle, not buying the tickets for the trains, so check this out carefully using the relevant embassy websites.

So where do you start?

• First, read through the seat61 pages linked above, as these explain the options for each stage of the journey.

• Then sketch out your itinerary using a simple spreadsheet like this, deciding where and for how long you want to stop off.

• Next, check out the visa situation for each country.

• Finally, follow the advice on each seat61 page to buy tickets for each train journey that you want to pre-book.

Request for more information

If anyone has any more information, an account of this journey, photos or travel reports that would be useful for this page, please e-mail me!

Australia by cargo ship:  This is a Globoship container vessel between Australia and Malaysia, which carries a limited number of passengers.  Photos courtesy of Anna Rice.

Passengers dine and relax in the officers' mess.		A cabin on the freighter.  Photos courtesy of Anna Rice.

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