Yeah, that's a good question...
In 2017 we, still as a couple, drove with Günther, our former T3 Syncro from home to Kyrgyzstan and back. We were able to get to know many countries that we had little or no knowledge of before.On the way there we drove over the Balkans, Greece and Turkey to Georgia.It continued via Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan and then north of Uzbekistan all the way to Kyrgyzstan.
Originally we wanted to drive through Uzbekistan and then the Paimir Highway and the Wakhan, but we changed our plans the day before crossing the border and drove through Kazakhstan.The main reasons for this were that an extremely large number of very, very negative stories about the border crossing in Tazhen could be found on the Internet and that it can be extremely difficult to find gasoline in Uzbekistan - the locals all drive LPG. And our route should have taken us about 1300 km through Uzbekistan. But we could only take gasoline for almost 1000 km with us. And we definitely didn't want to have to leave our Günther there because we couldn't get any more fuel and our visa only valid for 2 weeks.
On the way back we chose the fastest route via Kazakhstan, Russia and the Baltic States.We had 3 1/2 months for this trip and even if that was a long time, it was far too little. How gladly we would have stayed a little here and there and spent more time. But then everyday life at home caught up with us again very quickly. After Luisa came to us and we noticed that she liked overlanding by bus as much as we did and that our Günther was getting too small, we spontaneously bought Zacharias, our new Syncro.This time with a pop-up roof. So we had 4 beds and a new project for expansion and renovation.
Over time, the desire to be on the road for longer grew and since children are known to have to go to school at some point, it was clear: we have to leave before Luisa has to go to school. The sooner we get going, the more time we have. And so the plans to travel east again grew, this time with the two kids because Jonathan was supposed to arrive soon. We laid the route a little differently, south of the old one and with little overlap. And we didn't want to miss Uzbekistan this time. But we will see what the corona situation does with our plans. We want to start heading south in November this year, then we will have almost 3 years time.