It’s an unfortunate fact in this world that something as basic as your place of birth can limit your options in travel (and indeed in life). For Americans, this fact almost always works in our favor, and many Americans take this privilege quite for granted. Most of the world is open to us to freely travel, even if few take advantage of this unique ability.
I am admittedly naive in this regard, though I’m understanding it more and more as I travel. When I was in Thailand last year, I was struck by the stark difference in a US citizen visiting Thailand vs. a Thai citizen visiting the US. A US citizen merely flashes his passport and has a simple 30 second conversation and is granted a 30-day visa that can be extended fairly easily to up to 6 months.
A Thai citizen on the other hand, in order to simply visit the US, needs to prepare and present complicated paperwork complete with references, bank statements, etc. that can take months to prepare.
Americans do have some restrictions, though, due in part to our government’s activity overseas. In particular, the countries of Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, are likely unsafe for a bicycle trip.
Now some may claim that our state department’s advisories for these countries border on overly cautious, or that there are indeed safe parts of the country to visit, and I’m sure that is somewhat true; I believe people everywhere are fundamentally good and welcoming, and probably we would be fine. But there are bad actors out there, and there are incidents targetting US citizens, so I feel that it would be foolish to flaunt our freedom in the face of these warnings simply to accomplish an arbitrary goal of our holiday cycling tour. I have read stories of other cyclists from western countries who have put security in those countries in danger so that they could cycle their chosen routes, and I simply don’t think that’s a good decision.
So instead, I’m trying to find an acceptable route from Istanbul, Turkey to New Delhi, India. A simple option would be to hop on a plane, and there are many flights available. But we’d skip a huge portion of Asia by doing so, and we’d also arrive in India during the monsoon season; waiting another few months would be much better. One other option I’m looking into is cycling north through Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, and some of the -stans to end up in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. This, apparently, is a popular place for backpackers to hang out while they work on getting their east Asia visas sorted out, and there are quick and cheap direct flights to New Delhi.
I’m warming up to this option, and I’d love to hear your feedback!