[koyote]

Why would they be impossible?

Plenty of people do similar trips every year. I know two people who cycled from London to Sydney several years ago. There's also the Mongol Rally and similar fun adventures that people do.

Today you might not go through Afghanistan just like in the 70s you would not go through Vietnam.

I am also surprised you consider countries less safe today than in the 70s. The 70s were rife with terrorism and war throughout the world and poverty was orders of magnitudes higher in the vast majority of the countries than it is now.

Maybe you have just become more cautious?

[tim333]

It's not impossible - I did India to Europe overland a while ago. The problem is Iran. They make it awful hard to get a transit visa like insisting on holding your passport for a month and maybe giving it or not depending on whether your politicians have annoyed them recently or not. Half the people on our trip had to fly over it due to that stuff.

In the 1970 you could go via Afghanistan but that's been troubled for a while.

[kelipso]

I think the difference is you would have a lot of normal people traveling in the same roads, which does make it safer. Today you would be much more isolated as a traveling going through those roads.

[LorenPechtel]

Two factors:

1) There are a lot of places with Islamist violence that are not safe or in some cases simply not permitted. This is much worse than it was in the 70s.

2) You don't get a free choice of routes. There are a limited number of countries and going around isn't always an option.

Let's consider the two routes I did part of in the 70s/80s:

Katmandu to London. (Note that I'm not 100% sure I'm remembering the route right. I'm trying to reconstruct what I can remember with a map.)

Katmandu to Delhi: I wasn't on it for this section, I do not believe it's too problematic.

Delhi to Lahore: Pakistan??

to Islamabad: Pakistan????

to Kabul: Nope!

to northern Afghanistan: Nope!

to Karachi: Afghanistan, Nope! Pakistan????

to Shiraz: Pakistan???? Iran, Nope! and denied.

to Tehran: Iran, Nope! and denied.

We did not plan on staying with the bus past Tehran so I'm not confident beyond that, I think it was going to go to Tabriz, then Istanbul and up through Europe.

Let's see what we can do now:

Google will not map the route. However, I can get a partial map: It is willing to route to Kashgar. It goes *east*. Then south through Myanmar (pretty much a nope). I'm completely unable to get it to go across the India/China border, I don't know if this is political or a matter of roads, I suspect the latter. After Myanmar it goes through Thailand (AFIAK fine), Laos (no idea), Vietnam (I think ok) and up into China. Note that Kashgar is in Xinjang province--I consider that a nope.

Google now fails me. At this point there's a pinch between Russia to the north and Iran to the south. The only route west is via Turkmenistan or Kazakhstan, to reach the Caspian sea. At least in the past you could take a ferry but I have no idea of what it connected. The only viable spot I see on the west coast is Baku, Azerbaijan, then I can force Google to take the route through Armenia and Turkiye. AFIAK Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan are iffy, don't know about Azerbaijan and Armenia. I also haven't paid attention to where you might want to avoid in Turkiye.

Now, let's consider the other long trip I've done. Johannesburg to London.

South Africa: Parts are ok but there's no way I would overland. I can force it to approximate the route we were taking but there's a wall of Congo/South Sudan/Ethiopia that are Nope! places. And then there's a second barrier posed by the Sahara. You can take the western route through Nigeria (Nope!), Niger (no idea) and Algeria (my impression is Nope!) but AFIAK this route is actually forbidden at Timbuktu. Google will also map a route through Sudan (right through the combat area) up to Egypt--but AFIAK there's no way to proceed past that point. You have to cross into Israel (AFIAK temporarily blocked), then either up through Lebanon (Nope!) and Syria (Nope! and you will be denied) or through Jordan, then Syria (Nope! and you will be denied) or Iraq (Nope!, I suspect you will be denied.) Syria/Iraq make another uncrossable wall and you will have two damning stamps in your passport. (Israel will not stamp your passport, but Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon will. Once you've crossed an Israeli land border your passport is tainted and can't be used in a bunch of Muslim nations.) Trying to hug the western coast you'll hit Western Sahara (a Nope!) and I think some of those places along the coast are also Nope!s.