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, but there are two options to get there from the UK without flying:

Option 1:  Europe to Australia by sea. You can go all the way from the UK to Australia or New Zealand by sea, a slow voyage by passenger-carrying freighter or occasional round-the-world cruise.  Expect this to take 32-40 days and cost around £3,500+ one-way including cabin & meals.

Option 2, Europe to Australia via the Trans-Siberian Railway.  You can travel by train from London to Moscow, the Trans-Siberian Railway to the Far East, and catch a passenger-carrying freighter (if you can find one!) from there to Australia.  This is a real adventure, and quite a popular choice with lots to see on the way.

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.

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If you'd been going to Australia in the first half of the 20th century, you'd probably 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, only occasional round-the-world cruises and regular freighters which take a limited number of passengers. 

• How long does it take?  By regular cargo-ship, the voyage from Tilbury (UK) to either Sydney or Melbourne (Australia) or Auckland (New Zealand) takes 40 to 45 days.  One shipping line goes to Sydney or Melbourne in Australia via the Panama Canal, starting from Tilbury (UK), Rotterdam (Netherlands) or Dunkirk or Le Havre (France), though one ship heads east via the Suez Canal. Other routes operate from the USA or Hong Kong.

• How much does it cost?  A voyage from Europe to Australia or New Zealand generally costs around £3,500-£4,000.  Looked at another way, that's £100 or so per day for all food, transport and accommodation, which isn't bad!

• What's travelling as a passenger on a freighter like?  Ships typically carry up to 12 passengers in comfortable single or double cabins, often with en suite showers, fridge & TV, there's a lounge & dining room (or passengers share the officers' dining room), but obviously freighters have far fewer passenger facilities than a conventional passenger or cruise ship.   There's often an age limit, with shipping lines not taking anyone over 75 or 80 years old.

• How do I find out more, and buy a ticket?  For general info on long-distance passenger travel by cargo ship, try the following sites:

  www.strandtravelltd.co.uk (a UK agency which books cruises and freighters, including several UK-Australia passenger-carrying freighter services)

  www.globoship.ch & www.cruisepeople.co.uk

  www.geocities.com/freighterman.geo, 

  www.travltips.com/cruises/freighter/overview.php or www.freighter-cruises.com. 

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.

Route, timetable & costs...

Travel tickets alone costs only £750 or so from London as far as Singapore, but you must add food, hotels, 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 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.  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-Battambang by train or bus, bus to the frontier, train to Bangkok.

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

• Step 8:  The final leg from Asia to Australia is the problem.  Although there are ferries from Singapore to Indonesia, and you can get as far as Bali by scheduled buses, trains and ferry (see the Indonesia page), there are no regular passenger ships to Australia from either Singapore or Indonesia.  Or anywhere in the Far East to Australia, in fact.  You therefore need either a cruise or passenger-carrying freighter for the last leg from Southeast Asia to Australia.

• There are very few freighters on the Asia-Australia route that will carry passengers, but try Swiss company www.globoship.ch.  They have twice-monthly freighter sailings from Singapore to Fremantle (Perth) in Australia, costing 1,334 Swiss Francs (about £833) one-way and 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, 6,990 Swiss Francs (£4,368).  The ships only have one or two 2-berth cabins for passengers, so book this bit first, and book early!

• www.hanjin.com has been reported as running a weekly freighter between Singapore and Brisbane/Sydney/Melbourne, see http://www.hanjin.com/en/img/container/1261128306215_AUS.pdf#toolbar=1&navpanes=0.  Singapore to Brisbane takes 10 days.  Melbourne to Singapore takes 13 days.

• It's also reported that www.freighterexpeditions.com.au can offer a (monthly?) freighter from Port Klang in Malaysia to Fremantle, Melbourne or Sydney in Australia, a 14-day voyage for Aus$1,560.  This ship has just one double-bed cabin for passengers, so needs to be booked months ahead.

• Other freighter & cruise booking agencies to try include www.strandtravelltd.co.uk, CruiseAZ, www.cruisepeople.co.uk, www.freighterexpeditions.com.au, www.freightercruises.com.  You may need to try several agencies.

• 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 through a UK European train ticketing agency such as DB's UK office or www.europeanrail.com, then book Moscow-Beijing & Beijing-Hanoi through a local Russian agency such as www.realrussia.co.uk or 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.