The Complete Guide To: Surface travel

YOU MEAN THE OLD HIPPIE TRAIL TO INDIA?

Not exactly, though in many ways modern-day travel has come full circle. In the 1960s people chose not to fly because air travel was too expensive; these days, a growing band of travellers are choosing not to fly because of the environmental cost of their journey.

In the past four decades, air travel has become far cheaper. These days the overland options are often more expensive - and, of course, take much more time. But if you don't want to let the plane take the strain there are plenty of options for getting from A to B - whether a slow boat to China or a midnight train to Georgia. You also get a real sense of travelling, unlike airborne folk.

WHERE DO I START?

The overland traveller has two Bibles: the Thomas Cook European Rail Timetable, and its global counterpart, the Overseas Timetable. These comprehensive volumes focus on rail, road and sea travel that can get you from Alaska to Argentina or Ventnor to Vladivostok. They are priced at £11.50 and are published monthly and bi-monthly respectively. Call 01733 416477 or visit www.thomascooktimetables.com.

An excellent adjunct - and a great testimonial to the power of the webt and the benevolence of the internet community - can be found if you log on to www.seat61.com. Set up by train enthusiast Mark Smith as a hobby, this fast-growing website aims to make information about overland travel more accessible. It offers a wealth of information on train times, fares and how - and where - to buy tickets.

CAN I BOOK IN ADVANCE?

Yes, though the average high street travel agent will not demonstrate much interest in flogging you a seat on, for example, the superb Cascades train link from Seattle to Vancouver. Happily, a number of companies compete for your business.

Ticket agencies for the most popular routes include Rail Europe (0870 584 8848; www.raileurope.co.uk), which offers tickets to France, Spain, Italy or Switzerland. German Railways (Deutsche Bahn) has a UK office (0870 243 5363; www.bahn.co.uk) that specialises in Germany, Austria, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. Further afield, Rail Australia (01572 768022; www.railaustralia.com) has a small UK presence. Try Irish Rail (00 353 1 703 4070; www.irishrail.ie) for Ireland, Amtrak (001 800 872 7245; www.amtrak.com) for the US, Via Rail (001 888 842 7245; www.viarail.ca) for Canada, and Tranzscenic (00 64 4 495 0775; www.tranzscenic.co.nz) for New Zealand.

In addition, specialist agencies are expanding. International Rail (0870 751 5000; www.international-rail.com) offers expertise on Australia, North America and Japan, while Trainseurope (0900 195 0101; www.trainseurope.com) is good at supplying tickets for intra-European routes.

WHERE TO FIRST?

Calais. The French port is easily accessible under the Channel from Folkestone (08705 353535; www.eurotunnel.com) or across it from Dover on P&O Ferries (08706 009 009; www.poferries.com) and SeaFrance (08705 711 711; www.seafrance.com). Besides being a lively town with a fine beach, it plugs you into the continental road and rail networks.

You can alternatively travel on Eurostar (08705 186 186; www.eurostar.com), with fares from £55 return from London Waterloo to Calais, but if you are going by train it makes sense to go further: £55 to Lille, £4 more to the main destinations of Paris and Brussels. Other Eurostar routes include the summer-only journey to Avignon (from £99 return).

On the North Sea and Irish Sea, train and ferry operators have teamed up to try to beat the no-frills airlines. Relevant companies from the UK include Sail Rail (0845 075 5755; www.sailrail.co.uk), which offers all-in passenger fares on a huge range of UK-Irish journeys. Birmingham to Dublin starts from £46 return. Similarly, Dutch Flyer (0870 545 5455; www.dutchflyer.co.uk) offers packages from UK stations to cities in Holland, including ferry crossings between Harwich and the Hook of Holland, from £25 each way.

CAN I GO OVERLAND TO THE WORLD CUP?

Yes, but you'll need to book soon to get the ticket you want. Fares from London to Cologne, for example, start at £69 return but go much higher (0870 243 5363; www.bahn.co.uk). Various special offers are also being advertised on rail travel within Germany during the World Cup. These include the World Champion ticket, which lets you shuttle between two cities and back from £43 return, provided you have a ticket for the relevant match, and the World Champion pass, which gives you unlimited rail travel within Germany between 7 June and 11 July, from £255.

DOES ANYONE STILL GO INTERRAILING?

The concept of paying a fixed price for unlimited train travel is still rolling steadily along, with rail passes available throughout Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. It sounds obvious but the main thing to work out before you buy is how many journeys you're planning to take. It's probably not worth the money if you're only planning a couple of journeys, so make sure you have a rough itinerary sketched out first and compare booking individual fares against buying a pass.

If you decide to go for a rail pass, the next choice is whether you want it to cover one country, or several. Eurodomino railpasses, for example, are available for many European countries and give unlimited train travel in the specified country for between three and eight days within a one-month period. Fares start at €19 (£13.50) for a three-day under-26 second-class pass in Slovakia and go up to €312 (£223) for an eight-day adult first-class pass in Germany.

Buy a French rail pass before the end of May and you will save £25 on the normal price. Other single-country passes include the Trenitalia Pass, Holland Railpass and German Railpass.

All these are available through the Railchoice travel agency, which charges £6 postage (0870 165 7300; www.railchoice.co.uk). The same company also sells several multi-country passes. These range from the ScanRail pass, for Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland, to the Balkan Flexipass, which covers Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro.

Rail passes for North America, Japan and Australasia can also be booked through specialist operators in the UK such as STA Travel (08701 630026; www.statravel.co.uk).

WHAT ABOUT CLASSIC INTERRAIL?

Not as straightforward as it was when it began, 35 years ago, priced £32 for a month of unlimited travel in Europe. But if you want to do a lot of travelling, perhaps taking in the great cultural cities of Europe, the train is a very civilised way to do it. Amsterdam, Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Venice, Milan, Lyon and Paris would make a fabulous circuit. And, of course, you are free to hop off along the way.

These days, Europe is divided into zones comprising several countries. A one-zone InterRail pass starts at £140 for under 26s and includes unlimited travel to specified European countries (except the UK) for 16 days. Other passes are valid for 22 days across two zones or a month across all seven zones. The most expensive is a one-month, all-zones pass for over-26s, at £400. InterRail passes are also available from Rail Europe (0870 584 8848; www.raileurope.co.uk).

ON THE BUSES?

The two big long-distance coach operators in Europe are Eurolines (01582 404511; www.eurolines.com) and Busabout (020-7950 1661; www.busabout.com). Eurolines runs a network of routes linking around 500 European destinations, from Amsterdam to Zurich and Morocco. Adult fares from London to Paris, a journey of around eight to 10 hours, currently start from £20 return, including ferry crossings. The company also sells Eurolines Passes. These run for either 15 or 30 days and start from £115 for under-26s or £135 for adults for the 15-day version. You can buy these online at the Eurolines website. However, to buy standard single or return journeys online, you need to visit the National Express website (www.nationalexpress.com) and click the Europe tab.

Busabout offers similar services starting from Paris (you can buy an add-on ticket to get you there from London) but is more specifically aimed at the backpacker market. Fares are priced in two ways. Customers can either buy Flexitrip tickets, where you make single hops between destinations (from £225 for six stops) and create your own itinerary, or Loop tickets, where you buy a ticket for one of three pre-arranged loops around the Continent (from £275).

Long-distance bus companies further afield include Greyhound in North America (001 800 231 2222; www.greyhound.com), Megabus in the US (www.megabus.com), and Greyhound Australia (00 61 746 909 950; www.greyhound.com.au). In South Africa, check out the quirky Baz Bus, a hop-on, hop-off minibus service which runs between Cape Town and Johannesburg (00 27 21 439 2343; www.bazbus.com).

I'VE GOT MY OWN CAR

If you have your family or friends in tow, it can be cheaper and much more practical to go by car than by air. Several websites offer information on car-ferry routes and timetables across Europe, as well as * *tickets. These include www.aferry.to and www.allferries.co.uk, both of which cover the major Greek, Italian, Spanish and Scandinavian services as well as direct routes from the UK. Once you've worked out your itinerary, it's worth double-checking fares on the ferry operators' own sites.

An excellent option for combining the flexibility and convenience of your own car with extensive travel is to take an overnight Motorail train deep into the Continent. These car-carrying trains tend to run during the summer season. Motorail services currently include Calais to the South of France, Denderleeuw, near Brussels, to Bologna and Alessandria in Italy, and several routes within Germany and Austria.

Further afield, weekly Motorail trains also run from Dortmund and Frankfurt in Germany to Rijeka in Croatia. For more information on times, fares and tickets for all these trains, contact the specialist Motorail agency Rail Savers (01253 595555; www.railsavers.com). German-based Optima Tours (00 49 89 5488 0111; www.optimatours.de) offers Motorail trains from Villach in southern Austria to Bulgaria, Macedonia, Turkey and Greece.

AH, GREECE - MAY I ISLAND-HOP?

"The Greek islands have retained the enchantment that inspired Homer and Byron - the 'wine-dark sea', the scent of jasmine at twilight and nights alive with shooting stars." So says the travel writer, Dana Facaros. The other thing they have retained is a web of ferry, jet-boat and hydrofoil services that link the islands with each other and the mainland. Frewin Poffley's excellent Guide to Greek Island Hopping (£12.99) is very thorough.

I'D LIKE TO GO FURTHER AFIELD

Then consider stowing away on a cargo ship. Don't expect anything resembling air travel's journey times or prices, though. While ships can be a good-value way to travel (count on paying around £70 per day, including food, pretty comfortable accommodation - some cargo ships have pools - and, of course, transport), the journeys are so long that you need to be both time- and cash-rich to consider this option. A one-stop shop for information on freighter voyages is The Cruise People (0800 526 313; www.cruisepeople.co.uk). As well as more conventional cruises, this London-based company can arrange travel on 350 cargo ships. Longer sailings range from a 120-day round-the-world option from Tilbury via the Panama Canal, Tahiti and New Zealand, to a 23-day trip from Southampton to Hong Kong. Shorter trips include a 12-day hop from Liverpool to Richmond, Virginia, 14 days from Le Havre to Guadeloupe and five days from Southampton to Malta.

CAN I JOIN A GROUP?

For some travellers, overland travel means big trucks, beer stops and, more often than not, love bites. The benefits, apart from the social aspect, include an ability to cover long distances through exciting terrain on a budget. You get what you pay for, though; you have to put your own tent up and help with chores. If this sounds like your thing, operators running overland trips include Exodus (020-8673 0859; www.exodus.co.uk), Guerba (01373 858956; www.guerba.com), Dragoman Overland (01728 861133; www.dragoman.com), Kumuka (020-7937 8855; www.kumuka.com), Oasis Overland (01963 363400; www.oasisoverland.co.uk), Overland Club (0845 658 0336; www.overlandclub.com) and the slightly more sophisticated Africa in Focus (01803 770956; www.africa-in-focus.com).

A typical African route is Guerba's three-month Cairo to Cape Town journey, which runs through Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho and South Africa, and costs from £3,850 per person. Oasis Overland's Ottoman Odyssey, an 18-day trip from Istanbul to Damascus, costs from £350 per person. As is standard with these trips, international flights, transport to the pick-up point, optional excursions and your contribution to the group kitty are not included.

THREE CLASSIC OVERLAND JOURNEYS

The Hippie Trail

Forget full moon parties on Thailand's Koh Phangan. The first mass independent travel trend in Asia was the hippie trail of the 1960s and 1970s, which led, in an abstract way, from Western Europe to Kathmandu or Goa via Istanbul, Tehran and Kabul. If you want to follow it today, go by train. The website www.seat61.com advises that it will take several weeks, and hinges on getting a visa for Iran. If you're still up for the journey, take a series of trains from London to Istanbul (following the original Orient Express route for some of the journey), another to Tehran and another on to Kerman, and yet another to Bam. Next there's a bus ride from Bam to Zahedan and then it's back on to trains for the journey from there to Quetta in Pakistan, on to Lahore and finally to Amritsar in India, from where you can choose your connection north or south deeper into the sub-continent.

Trans-Siberian railway

Running for 9,300 kilometres from Moscow to Vladivostok, the Trans-Siberian is the world's longest railway. It was completed in 1916 to serve Russia's growing Pacific port. The original line passes through Yaroslavl on the Volga, Ekaterinburg in the Urals and Irkutsk near Lake Baikal but other lines branch off through China and Mongolia to Beijing and on to Shanghai. The Russia Experience (020-8566 8846; www.trans-siberian.co.uk) offers 10-day trips along the original route, including two nights in Moscow, from £609 per person - but you must pay extra to reach the Russian capital, and to travel back from Vladivostok.

The Silk Route

The topography that links China and Central Asia is notoriously treacherous, a region of harsh deserts, icy mountain passes and, in its heyday as a trading route, bandits. The challenging nature of the terrain has made this a legendary journey but today it's a little easier to tackle, especially if you join a pre-arranged tour. World Expeditions (0800 0744 135; www.worldexpeditions.co.uk), for example, offers 29-day Silk Route trips from Beijing to Samarkand via the great Wall of China, the Terracotta Warriors, the Tibetan monastery at Labrang, the Tian Shan mountains, Kashgar, Tashkent and Bukhara. Prices start at £2,350, including meals, beds and internal transport but not international flights - or trains.