Hi! I am Steven, and next to me on the picture is Saule. Together we are the creators of Caravanistan. I do the writing, while Saule takes care of everything else. Hope you enjoy our website.
About Caravanistan
Caravanistan was born out of a frustration to find reliable information about Central Asia and the Silk Road on the internet, or anywhere else for that matter. We knew we were not alone: we saw the same questions popping up on forums over and over without anyone having a trustworthy answer. So we started thinking how we could help.
With Caravanistan we aim to do 3 things.
Our primary mission is to provide accurate, up-to-date information about what matters most to people traveling in Central Asia and the Silk Road: visa rules, safety updates and transport options.
Secondly, we want to inspire. We are big proponents of slow travel. We want to encourage travelers to delve deeper, stay longer and go further. There is so much to see beyond the advertised highlights, and we hope you take the time to go and find it.
We also hope (long-term goal) to change the story on the region. For newspaper editors, it is autocracy and environmental disasters. For travel bloggers, it is crrrazzy and awesome. We hope to de-romanticize that story, bring it down to its real proportions, and inject a larger degree of nuance.
When talking about the business of travel, our goal is to make it easier for travelers to choose a reliable service provider that suits their needs and style of travel, while giving local people the opportunity to earn money gracefully thanks to a tourism that is focused on quality rather than quantity.
That’s it. We know we are not there yet, but we are working hard to make this site a reliable reference for everyone who is (dreaming about) traveling in Central Asia and the Silk Road.
Steven and Saule