Are you wanting to hide in our suitcases/backpacks? Don’t want to worry about the shots and other minor complications such as language barriers and visas? Do you not want to worry who comes to sit in your train car? Well, thanks to some technology, time, and a dash of craziness you can enjoy the train from the comfort of your own home (or nearby coffee shop)! What am I talking about? Well… this:
Ride the Moscow-Vladivostok Trans Siberian train with Google Maps
I stumbled onto this when researching something for the trip. Street view is great and all, but I would argue that this is a bit more awesome. And like any real train trip you can listen to the wheels (or perhaps the balalaika, the radio or a reading of some classic Russian literature) as you travel, and even get off the train and explore some of the 87 cities it passes en-route. It travels from Moscow and heads East, as is the more traditional way to travel. So this “sim” (for lack of a better term) will be oddly similar* to the last part of the train trip for us when we are between Lake Baikal and Moscow.
If you want to view the entire trip, over the 6 day journey – be prepared, as it clocks in at over 150 viewing hours! If anyone manages to sit through this before we leave – I promise I will bring you back some awesome souvenir. Oh – and speaking of hours… you know how everyone wishes there were more hours in the day? Well, due to us going from East to West, we should be pushing for 25 hour days!
* I am fully expecting our trip to be much less green in color and more of the happy “arctic white” or “cool snow” colour us Canadians know and love 6 months of the year.
Rails Across the Curtain 
Haha, I think I would rather just do the trip for real!