The Long Way West - Mongolia to Istanbul Overland

The Long Way West

Mongolia to Istanbul Overland

Book Two in the Claire Dalton Travel Memoirs

Four Australian friends. Five countries. Ten thousand kilometres overland. One very long way to Istanbul.

After surviving two weeks crossing the Gobi Desert in an ancient Soviet van, Claire and her travelling companions return to Ulaanbaatar with what seems like a perfectly reasonable plan: keep travelling west.

The long way.

What follows is a slow, occasionally chaotic journey across Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway, through Azerbaijan and Georgia in the Caucasus, and finally into Türkiye — travelling by trains, buses, marshrutkas and the occasional taxi when public transport sensibly refuses to cooperate.

Along the way there are frozen lakes, formidable Russian railway attendants, questionable menus, Georgian wine, remote border crossings, mud volcanoes, ruined cities and a Turkish bus driver whose approach to international immigration proves unusually energetic.

But The Long Way West is about more than getting from Mongolia to Istanbul. It is about the people encountered along the way, meals shared without a common language, places previously known only as dots on a map, and the small, unexpected moments that make slow travel worthwhile.

Warm, observational and dryly funny, The Long Way West is a travel memoir for anyone who believes the shortest route is rarely the most interesting.

Perfect for readers who enjoy Bill Bryson-style travel writing, overland adventures, railway journeys and stories where things do not always go entirely according to plan.

The journey includes: the Trans-Siberian Railway across Russia, Lake Baikal and Siberia, Moscow and St Petersburg, Azerbaijan and the Caucasus, Georgian food and wine, Türkiye and the Doğu Express, and one final arrival in Istanbul after a journey of roughly 13,000 kilometres.

The Long Way West continues the journey begun in The Gobi Diaries: A Tale of Sand, Survival and Adventure, but can also be enjoyed as a standalone travel memoir.