Silk Roads: A Route & Planning Guide (Trailblazer)

Good background

I have been planning on overlanding Europe to China for quite a while. The only problem is there is no one book for it. Reading individual country guides is extremely time consuming since a change of plans in one country would propagate out to all the other countries. More over, backpacking with 5 Lonely Planet guides would be crazy. Alas, at last I found this book. It tells you exactly where the silk road is (it is really a network of roads), how to get there and all the points of interests in between. With the book in hand, I can turn to Lonely planet guides for the nitty gritty details of city hopping.The only draw back I can point to is the lack of coverage on Kazakhstan. This book offers 2 route into China. First route is across Kyrgyzstan from Bishkek to Kashgar. While this is definitely the original silk road, doing this trip involves a 16 hour bus ride on a rickety road cut through the high Pamirs. Not terribly safe nor pleasant. The second route is going across Pakistan and up the Karakorum Highway. Again, this is both a historically accurate and extreme scenic road. Given the current security situation in Pakistan, this is not a great choice either. The simplest and safest route is to go through Kazakhstan from Almaty to Urumqi by train. While all the information could easily be obtained from wikitravel, I feel this book is doing its readers a disservice by nudging them towards the 2 high mountain passes.All in all I would still highly recommend this book. For a trip this size, having a big picture book is essential. No other book come close in terms of breath and depth on this subject.Bon Voyage silk roaders.

I used this 3rd edition for travels and info during my year in Xian with visits relevant to the Silk Road in China in combination with my Lonely Planet guidrbook for China , such as Lanzhou, Xining and Urumqi and Kashgar, but i didnt have LP guidebooks with me for my visit into Almaty, Kazakhstan and Kyrgzstan when i needed to exit China on the expiration of one visa to reenter with the 2nd one, and this guidebook was very helpful for getting down to Bishkek, Jalalabad, Uzgen (Ozgon) and Osh and then on down to the Irkteshsm pass which took quite a bit of work to get current information, but it all worked out well and thankful i had this guidebook not only for logistics but for the interesting facts as i journeyed slong passes connected to the Silk road. Quite a bit of searching back and forth through the book is required tho to connect places but the indez helps with cross referencing well enough. I had a very good Silk road map with me as well in conjunction for Silk road info.From the Irktesham pass i wrnt to Kashgar then Kashgar up to Tashkorgan and back to Kazhgar, then up to Kanas national park and then long flights to Nanjing via another stop at Urumqi with which during a few free hours went to visit the tower

We're planning a trip to the area and have found this book to be both useful and informative. It's laid out in a similar style to Lonely Planet guides. Definitely recommend this guide if you're intending to visit the area or travel on the Silk Roads.

Haven't read it all, but have dipped in and it looks to be just I need, covers the areas well, has loads of useful tips and is as up to date as you can hope a book to be.

Very useful guidebook.

History and helpfulness in buckets .Just right ..not a simple task ..but a unforgettable look into our past and hopefully our future.