How a wedding invitation turned into an epic four-month adventure for a family determined to minimise their harm to the environment
A trip to a family wedding might often mean a few hours in the car and an overnight stay. But when Shannon Coggins set off to see her sister get married, the 58 year old was embarking on an epic four-month journey that took her more than 10,000 miles through 19 countries and included an. But while most people might hop on a flight and arrive within 24 hours, Ms Coggins, her partner Theo Simon, 66, and their 19-year-old daughter Rosa – who is on a gap year – took the long way round..
The family’s “adventure of a lifetime” didn’t just require extensive saving and typical travel preparations such as planning routes and applying for visas – for Russia and China. The couple also had to find someone to stay in their house while they were gone.from London to Amsterdam, then travelled through the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Turkey, Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.
“I never wanted to get in another vehicle ever again,” Ms Coggins says. “We started walking and within five minutes it started to rain. We put on our £1.99 raincoats we bought in England and traipsed across this road. “They looked at our passports and then asked me to accompany them, and they interrogated me for 45 minutes.“Something was going on, nothing to do with me, but there was something they were looking for. It was scary. For all I knew, I’d suddenly be taken off the train.”
“When you’re on a boat or train, you can lie flat,” Ms Coggins says. “But when you’re on a bus, your seat doesn’t quite recline. We did two 24-hour buses back to back, followed by another 12 hours. It was relentless and hot.”