Here’s everything you need to know about the Trans Mongolian Railway, and what you can do to make the journey as pleasant as possible!

Choose Your Train:

Passenger Trains

Passenger trains are the basic kind, slightly cheaper but slightly older and definitely not as comfortable.

My Chinese train from Irkutsk to Ulan Bator to Beijing was one of these; the bunks were solid, the carriage was old, the toilets were dirty with no toilet roll, you couldn’t buy snacks or water and the only plugs were in the hallway and didn’t work, but it is good enough and is sometimes your only option!

Firmenny Trains

Firmenny trains are slightly more expensive, but they will be a much more pleasant experience for longer journeys.

Your carriage attendant will do a good job at keeping the toilets clean and stocked, they can offer snacks and drinks, sometimes you’ll get fed, you’ll find plugs to charge your phone by each bunk and the carriages are generally newer and well looked after.

Choose Your Class:

First Class

First class is very expensive, but you get two single beds in a room. It’s perfect for couples with a bigger budget, or you can sometimes choose female-only compartments for women going solo.

Second Class

Second class means four bunks in a compartment and is significantly cheaper. Just remember, you can’t choose your bunkmates so you might be stuck with some weirdos, but it’s good for couples or groups, you can also sometimes choose female-only compartments.

You have a choice of the bottom bunk which doubles up as a sofa, you’ll be sharing this with your bunkmate during the day, but you have access to the table, plus storage under your bed. Top bunk is also great, room enough to sit up and a little bit of storage for your personal items.

Third Class

Third class is an open carriage with 52 bunks, like being in a big dorm room, and it’s the cheapest. Although there is no privacy, it’s also more sociable and fun to people watch, a great option for male or female solo travelers.

Third class bunks are like second class without the privacy, plus the extra “lateral” bunks running along the side of the carriage. The bottom lateral bunk turns into a table and two chairs, so you’re sharing it with your bunkmate during the day, but if there’s no one above you it’s all yours.

The top lateral bunk has to be the worst, it’s as cramped as the others (you can’t sit up in third class top bunks) but less private because you’re basically lying in the corridor, and you’re at the mercy of your bunkmate because if they want to make their bed, you’re stuck in yours.

Note for solo travelers: I’d recommend either the top or bottom bunk in second class, or the bottom lateral bunk in third class.

Seating

Seating is an option on some trains, I wouldn’t choose this for an overnight journey but it’s comfy and spacious and perfect for shorter trips. The seats recline, some carriages have a toilet, and even TV’s playing old school Russian movies.

Trans Mongolian Railway Tips:

Book Tickets Online

If you wait until you get to Russia and try to book at the stations, you might struggle to find a decent bed or it could even be sold out. You can use an agent like Real Russia, but they charge a high commission. I recommend downloading the Russian Railways app, once you’ve signed up you can easily view and book tickets online.

Note: you can’t book tickets between countries online, so you’ll need to either pay an agency to do it for you, or do it at the train station when you arrive.

Always Download The Ticket

Once you’ve booked through the app make sure you download the ticket because it disappears from the app once the train departs and they might check it again before you leave the station.

Check Out The Route

When booking the ticket you can see the route, plus the length of each stop. Screenshot this, keep your phone on Moscow time and you can plan which stops are long enough to get off and stretch your legs, but don’t wander too far, and take your valuables with you. It’s also listed in the carriage.

Wear Comfy Clothes

You’ll spend most of the time sitting around and watching the world go by. I saw one guy spend two days on the train (including sleeping) in jeans. No thanks. Be as comfy as possible.

Bring A Change Of Clothes

After even a day, you’ll start to feel a bit grimy. Have a comfy outfit to wear during the day, and something even comfier to change into at night. Don’t forget clean underwear!

Bring A Pair Of Flipflops Or Slippers

You aren’t really allowed to walk around in bare feet, and you wouldn’t want to. I bought a pair of slippers (I forgot to pack my flipflops) for $2 and it was a very good investment!

Bring Something To Keep You Busy

Sometimes you’ll find yourself too busy socializing to get anything else done, or staring out the window at the scenery, but sometimes the train can be really boring.

Pack a Kindle, a journal, coloring books, download movies onto your phone, or even bring your laptop… But don’t expect any power unless you’re on a Russian Firmenny train, make sure you bring a power bank!

Bring Something To Help You Sleep

Whether it’s earplugs to block out the snoring, a sleep mask to block out the lights, or green tea and a hot water bottle, do what you gotta do.

Pack A Small Toiletries Bag

Wet wipes will be your best friend. You could also bring dry shampoo, or perfume to hide the smell of cheesy feet. Don’t forget your toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant!

Pack Some Food

Although there’s a restaurant car, it’s expensive and limited. You can hop off and buy food on the station platform at the longer stops, or from your carriage attendant, but it’s not a great choice.

You want food that doesn’t need refrigerating or can be cooked just with hot water. A big part of the experience is sharing food with your bunkmates, so bring a little extra!

Most people eat noodles for every meal but you can get creative. Bread, salted butter, jam, honey or spread (I brought Marmite from home), cheese slices or hard cheese, cured meat, noodles, cuppa soup, instant mash, fruit, crisps, biscuits, crackers, chocolate, the list goes on.

I would also recommend bringing some sort of container to cook and store food in, I bought a large plastic soup cup with a lid and handle and it’s been a lifesaver! Some cutlery is also essential.

Bring Some Water

While there is an unlimited supply of boiling water on board, there is no safe drinking water. I brought a two-liter bottle and my own one-liter bottle, you can buy small bottles from the carriage attendant or larger bottles for cheaper on the station platform whenever you stop.

Have you ridden the Trans Mongolian Railway? Share any tips you have in the comments below!

You can also follow the adventure on Facebook and Instagram!

Suggested next reading: Train Travel In Myanmar: What I Wish I’d Known

The post How To Survive On The Trans Mongolian Railway appeared first on Modern Trekker.

Sometimes called the “Venice of the North”, you can spend your days wandering along canals lined with baroque and neoclassical palaces and exploring old churches and cathedrals. The old capital city is also home to two of the greatest art and cultural museums in the world, The State Hermitage and The State Russian museums.

You could spend weeks exploring everything this beautiful city has to offer, but there are a few highlights that shouldn’t be missed. Whether you have a month-long tourist visa, or you’re on a three-day land excursion from a cruise ship, it’s possible to see everything on this list, just make sure you pack good walking shoes!

So without further ado, here’s your St Petersburg travel guide:

The historic center of St Petersburg is the first place you’ll want to explore. Everything is within walking distance, but public transport is cheap and easy to use with Google Maps if your feet get tired.

It’s possible to see each of these in a day, but you’ll want extra time to actually visit the museums.

The State Russian Museum

Only a 10-minute walk from the main street of Nevsky Prospect, this is as good a place as any to start your walking tour. It has the largest collection of Russian fine art in St Petersburg and is one of the largest museums in the country. You can easily spend half a day visiting the Mikhailovsky Palace, with other exhibitions held at the Marble Palace, the Mikhailovsky Castle and the Stroganov Palace.

A same-day ticket to two exhibitions will cost 600R ($9), or a three-day ticket to all four will cost 850R ($13).

The Church of our Saviour on the Spilled Blood

Located just behind the State Russian Museum, this will be your first taste of an onion-domed Russian Orthodox cathedral and it will not disappoint. It’s so similar to St Basil’s in Moscow with its multicolored domes and turrets, just not quite as busy!

Tickets to go inside cost 250R ($4) and it’s well worth it to see the interior decorated with a kaleidoscope of colorful mosaics.

The Summer Garden

Head through Mikhailovsky garden, across the Moika river and take a walk along the leafy green paths of St Peterburg’s oldest garden, the Summer Garden, where you’ll find marble statues, fountains and the modest Summer Palace of Peter the Great tucked away at the back.

It’s a great place to escape the city streets for a while, entrance to the garden is free, while the palace is currently closed for refurbishment.

Cruiser Aurora

Walk through the barren Field of Mars and cross the massive Neva river for a detour to this 1900’s Russian cruiser that played a small part in the communist revolution by firing a blank round from the forward gun as a signal to start the assault on the Winter Palace.

It now houses one of the largest maritime museums in the world with a huge collection of model ships, tickets cost 600R ($9).

Peter and Paul Fortress

Founded in 1703 by Peter the Great, the Peter and Paul Fortress was the original citadel of St Petersburg, set on an island on the banks of the Neva river.

Entrance to the grounds is free, if you want to go inside the golden Peter and Paul Cathedral tickets cost 450R ($6). You can also buy tickets to visit the bastion and its grim prison cells, or to climb to the top of the fortress walls for stunning panorama views.

The Strelka

At the tip of Vasilyevsky Island, as you cross the Neva river again, is where you’ll find the banks of The Strelka, with great views of Peter and Paul Fortress to the left and The Hermitage to the right, flanked by two Rostral Columns, iconic St Petersburg landmarks.

St Isaac’s Cathedral

Walk along the river past the Admiralty and a statue of Peter the Great and you’ll see the golden dome of this stunning cathedral that dominates St Petersburg’s skyline.

You can buy tickets to visit the museum inside (250R, $4) or to climb the 262 steps to the collonade (150R, £3) rewarding you with incredible panoramic views of the city.

The State Hermitage Museum

Follow the road past the southern face of the Admiralty and you can’t miss the baby blue Winter Palace.

If you want to explore this vast museum housing over three million items displayed throughout five buildings (the Winter Palace, the Small Hermitage, the Old Hermitage, the New Hermitage and the Hermitage Theatre), you’ll need at least a full day, more if you have the time, a combined ticket costs 700R ($11).

You can also visit part of the Hermitage Storage Facility and the other branches; the east wing of the General Staff Building, the Winter Palace of Peter I, the Menshikov Palace and the Imperial Porcelain factory.

If like me you want a quick tour of the stunning Winter Palace then you can give yourself a few hours to admire the architecture, the chandeliers and of course the artwork and historic pieces on display. They offer free entry on the first Thursday of every month, but the queue was a mile long even an hour before it opened, so good luck with that.

The best time to visit is on a Wednesday or Thursday evening when it’s open until 9pm and most of the tour groups have left.

Kazan Cathedral

Outside the Hermitage lies the Palace Square which connects back to the main shopping street of Nevsky Prospekt with one last sight to see. From the outside the 111m long collonade of this cathedral makes it look more like a government building, but once you step inside it’s all dark and gothic traditional Orthodox architecture.

You’ll often see a long line of people waiting to kiss the icon of Our Lady of Kazan.

While most of St Petersburg’s sights are in the historic heart of the city, there are a few just outside that are worth tackling public transport or paying for a taxi to visit.

Nikolsky Cathedral

This baby blue cathedral of the patron saint of sailors is one of the most picturesque in the city with its golden domes, finely carved wooden iconostasis and bell tower overlooking Griboyedov Canal.

Trinity Cathedral

I thought I had seen most of the cathedrals that this city had to offer, but when I climbed to the collonade of St Isaac’s I could see the towering blue domes covered in gold stars far away in the distance, so I made my way there the next morning. In 2006 it was destroyed by a fire, but has now been restored to its former glory.

Smolny Cathedral

This sky blue cathedral is the beautiful centerpiece of Smolny Convent, built in the 1700’s. Its plain white interior makes a nice change from the usual colorful mosaics, and you’ll find a large collection of golden icons. The highlight is a climb to the top of the bell tower (150R, $3), the views are stunning!

Once you’ve gotten the hang of public transport in St Petersburg, it’s definitely worth heading farther out to see two of the grandest sights this city has to offer.

Peterhof

The Grand Palace of Peterhof is an imposing yellow building that dominates the hill above the Gulf of Finland, but that’s not why people visit, they come for the magnificent grounds.

The Upper Park is free to enter, but it’s worth buying a ticket for the Lower Park (900R, $14) so you can enjoy the stunning collection of golden fountains, tree-lined canals and acres of parkland. You can also take the hydrofoil for 800R ($12) one way which is a nice way to see the Neva River.

Naval Cathedral of St Nicolas

On the island of Kotlin stands the navel fortress of Kronshtadt, and it’s here that you will find the stunning white and gold Naval Cathedral. The interior is just as impressive, and although it’s far from the city it’s worth a visit on your way back from Peterhof.

This is everything I managed to visit with just three days and a lot of walking.

On my first day, I covered everything in the historic heart of the city. On my second day, I visited the things farther away, and went back to a few of my favorite locations in the center to get better photos. On my last day, I visited The Hermitage and Peterhof, stopping at the Naval Cathedral on the way back.

Public transport is very easy to use, you can rely on Google Maps to get you anywhere you need to go, whether it’s on the metro or the buses. You can pick up a local prepaid SIM card from мтс (MTS) with unlimited internet for only 600R ($9).

There are also many options for food, shopping and accommodation throughout the city, head to the main street of Nevsky Prospekt to find the best of everything!

Suggested next reading: Your Perfect Little Travel Guide To Moscow, Russia

The post How To Experience The Best Of St Petersburg In Just 3 Days appeared first on Modern Trekker.

I spent three days in Moscow and while it’s not as compact and easy to navigate as St Petersburg, it’s still an essential stop on your visit to Russia.

If you’re pushed for time you can see the highlights in a day, but I’d recommend spending at least three days here to make the most of it! Here’s my little travel guide to Moscow based on my own experience.

Where I Stayed

I stayed at the perfectly located Nereus Hostel, so I was only a 10-minute walk from the Moscow Kremlin.

Kremlin Tips

I recommend getting up early and being at the gates when they open at 9am so you can avoid the busiest part of the morning, it fills up with coach loads of tourists by 11am.

Tickets for the Kremlin and its Cathedral Square cost 500R ($7), you can pay an extra 250R ($4) to climb the Ivan the Great Bell Tower (definitely recommend this), and tickets to the Armoury cost an extra 500R.

As you enter the main gate you have the modern Kremlin State Palace to your right and as you pass through an archway of the Church of the Twelve Apostles you’ll find yourself in Cathedral Square, surrounded by white marble and golden domes.

You can climb to the top of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower and you can go inside the Cathedral of the Archangel, the Cathedral of the Annunciation, the massive Assumption Cathedral and the tiny Church of the Deposition of the Virgin’s Robe. You’re not allowed to take photos inside any of them, but I didn’t realize this and managed to get one before I got told off!

Cathedrals & Other Noteworthy Sites

If you leave the Kremlin by the east gate you’ll find yourself in the south corner of the Red Square, opposite the magnificent St Basil’s Cathedral. Seeing such a famous landmark in person is pretty amazing! You can pay to go inside, it costs 700R ($10, half price for students) and I expected a big open cathedral like the rest of them, but I was pleasantly surprised with many small rooms, winding corridors and dark decor.

The grand building running along the southeast side of the square is GUM, a massive department store for the wealthy, you’ll find brands like Prada, Louis Vuitton and Burberry. To the northwest of the square is the dark red State Historical Museum which costs 400R ($6) to enter, it houses a nice collection but after a visit to the magnificent Hermitage Museum, I found it quite boring.

Another must-do in my travel guide to Moscow, for me at least (I loved the architecture too much to be sick of it), was visiting the absolutely stunning Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. It stands on the banks of the Moskva River, you can climb to the collonade for 400R ($6, half price for students) which rewards you with wonderful panoramic views of the city and the interior is gorgeous, I think it’s the most beautiful cathedral I visited in Russia.

From here you can cross the bridge and follow the river south, past the giant statue of Peter the Great, to Gorky Park—it’s a really nice place to be on a sunny day.

Further along the river is the much quieter Swallow Hills park, with a soon-to-be cable car that will take you up to the dramatic Moscow State University, one of seven similar skyscrapers throughout the city, and the view from here is wonderful.

As you take a bus back to the city, you can stop at Arbat Street, one of the main shopping sections of Moscow.

Outside The City

If you’re sick of the city and want to get out of it for a while, head south to the massive Kolomenskoye Open Air Museum where you can stroll through endless gardens and visit the Alexei Mikhailovich Palace, the Church of the Ascension and the Church of Our Lady of Kazan. Sit on the hill overlooking the suburbs and watch the sunset with a cold beer.

Guided Tours

The last thing I can really recommend in this travel guide to Moscow is a metro tour. Certain stations are more like tiny palaces, churches or art museums.

You can join a guided tour for around $10 but they go at the busiest times. It’s much better to go by yourself either very (very) early in the morning, between 11am and 2pm or last thing at night, when a single metro ticket only costs 55R (85¢)!

Most of the prettiest metro stations are conveniently located on the Circle Line: the stained windows of Novoslobodskaya, the regal Park Kultury and the colorful frescoes of Kiyevskaya. Some exceptions are the art deco Mayakovskaya (dark green line), the golden Aviamotornaya (yellow line) and the futuristic Elektrozavodskaya (dark blue line).

You can pick up a Troika card for your stay or buy individual tickets for each journey, and you can plan your route using either Google Maps or the Yandex.Metro app.

So that was my little travel guide to Moscow! Know of any other tips you’d like to share based on your own experience? Let us know in the comments below and we may even add it to this article!

Suggested next reading: 6 Best Places In The World To See The Northern Lights

The post Your Perfect Little Travel Guide To Moscow, Russia appeared first on Modern Trekker.