Overland from Bali to London — why not? This is how I did it

Times

05-05-2025

'You're going where without flying?' asked the bemused receptionist at Uluwatu Breeze Village guesthouse in Bali. 'To London,' I replied. 'But tomorrow I just need a taxi to the bus station.'
I've always been fascinated by the concept of travelling overland, settling into a long train or bus journey and watching landscapes and cultures change as I cross regions and nations. In 2019, my mental health was at rock bottom after losing my stepdad to cancer. I had a desperate need for a sudden change, so I decided to travel, solo, from Bali in Indonesia to London. The catch? I'd do it all without flying.
This coincided with the first series of Race Across the World, in which five couples venture on a long overland journey, many of them with little travel experience. My trip would look a bit different — I would have my phone and credit cards, for example, but wouldn't have any on-the-ground support. I also wouldn't be taking the most direct route, but would instead be visiting countries that interested me along the way.
From Bali, I planned to take ferries and buses across the southeast Asian mainland, from Indonesia to Singapore, north to Malaysia and through Thailand, then east to Cambodia and Vietnam. In China, I'd swap to sleeper trains. Keen to experience an extra two countries, I'd enter Mongolia, take a ride on the Trans-Mongolian railway, which runs from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia's capital, to Moscow, and change trains in Russia before entering Kazakhstan.
In central Asia, I'd cross over into Uzbekistan and then back into Kazakhstan before taking a ferry across the Caspian Sea. Then I'd travel through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, into Europe and take trains — and buses when I ran low on funds — all the way from Bulgaria to Calais in northern France. From here, I'd take a ferry to Dover in Kent and then a train to London.
Before I left the UK, I learnt basic Russian to help with my travels in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, both former USSR countries; Russian is still the lingua franca of the region. Wanting to pack as light as possible, I crammed the necessities into a cabin-baggage-sized rucksack. After I put together a spreadsheet of predicted expenses of transport, accommodation and everyday costs, I budgeted about £1,500 a month.
I secured a Chinese and Mongolian visa at the relevant embassies in London and planned to apply for a Russian transit visa at the embassy in Mongolia. Azerbaijan required an e-visa and all other countries were visa-on-arrival or visa-free.
I planned to book everything on the go, so when I arrived in Bali, all I had reserved was my first five nights of accommodation there. Then I took a bus to the west of the island, boarded a ferry to Java and took trains and buses to Indonesia's capital, Jakarta.
Here, my first challenge awaited. I'd decided it would be a good idea to sweep straight up 774 miles on slow-moving roads to the Sumatran city of Pekanbaru, located in the middle of the island, without stopping. Here, I could continue towards Singapore.
• Indonesia travel guide
The bus could take any time between 25 and 60 hours — and there was an unspecified delay at the station. Not understanding any announcements, I had to rely on the helpfulness of the staff, who alerted me when my bus finally rolled into the station, four hours late.
After 59 hours, including seven stuck in Jakarta's traffic, five rest stops eating nothing but plain noodles and Oreos — and engaging in topics of conversation that ranged from Sumatran tigers to the Jakarta car industry with other passengers — the bus finally arrived in central Sumatra.
Crossing the rest of southeast Asia was easy by comparison — Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam generally have good transport options and services catered towards tourists. While China has fewer western tourists than other countries in Asia, and English isn't widely spoken, my visa was already secured and the country's fantastic railways and high-tech cities make overlanding a breeze.
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Today, travel to Russia — which was on my 2019 route — is advised against, but the trip would still be possible by entering Kazakhstan from Xinjiang in western China.
Friendly, English-speaking locals and a small but tight-knit travel community gave me the knowledge I needed to travel through Kazakhstan, central Asia's northernmost country. The highlight was a local camping trip from Almaty to the Assy plateau, bright-green grassland lined with snowy peaks and dotted with nomad yurts.
In Uzbekistan, south of Kazakhstan, I travelled along the former Silk Road by rail, hopping between Samarkand, renowned for its 15th-century observatory; Bukhara, one of the holiest cities on the ancient route; and Khiva, a city dating back about 2,500 years. A 30-hour train in platzkart (third class, consisting of beds in an open carriage) later, I crossed back into western Kazakhstan (which also borders Uzbekistan) and prepared to take a Soviet-era cargo ship across the Caspian Sea.
There's no timetable — you simply find a local contact and ask when to be at the port in Aktau, western Kazakhstan. Mine informed me I should arrive at 4am. The terminal was abandoned for an hour before I found another two tourists (they'd been told to arrive at 5am). At 8am, we were checked in. At midday, we boarded the 24-hour ferry, which would take us from Aktau to Baku, Azerbaijan's capital.
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After a night train to Tbilisi, Georgia's vibrant capital, a bus to Kars in eastern Turkey, a sleeper train to Ankara, Turkey's capital in the centre of the country, and an overnight bus to Istanbul, I was on the European backpacker route. Then I entered the EU and used a combination of trains and FlixBus through Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and France to reach Calais. Five months after I left Uluwatu, tears of joy stung my eyes as I saw the white cliffs of Dover appear on the skyline from a P&O ferry.
Looking back, I'd recommend anyone attempting this to spend longer than I did on this trip — about eight months would be ideal. But I managed to travel from Bali to London without flying, with a small budget, employing on-the-go research and a lot of grit and determination. Anyone who has that could do the same.
• In Europe, I used official rail websites to find timetables or Flixbus.com.
• I booked this trip through a variety of different sites, but I recommend 12go.asia for transport booking in southeast Asia, chinahighlights.com for train reservations in China and tickets.kz for train tickets in Kazakhstan.
• In Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Georgia, I booked trains at the stations; in Turkey I used the official Turkish train TCDD website.