Portugal to Singapore by train: route guide

The line runs Lagos–Madrid–Paris–Berlin–Moscow–Ulaanbaatar–Beijing–Vientiane–Bangkok–Singapore. There has never been an unbroken railway along the whole of it. War and pandemic rules have cut it before, and the Laos section still has a 15 km gap between stations that you cover by taxi.

That is why the practical version is a chain of sections rather than one ticket. You change trains, and in several cities you change stations by metro or taxi. In western and central Europe the cities sit close together, so you can fly into one, ride day trips west and east, and cover that stretch in both directions without committing to the whole line.

Lagos to Madrid crosses the Iberian peninsula; Madrid to Paris and Paris to Berlin are straightforward European legs with frequent services. Berlin to Moscow is the first leg that depends on the political situation, and it is the one most likely to be closed. Moscow to Ulaanbaatar is the long haul across Siberia and Mongolia, and Moscow to Beijing is the single longest ride on the route at about 7,622 km over seven days.

From Beijing the line runs south through Laos to Vientiane, where the 15 km gap forces a taxi between stations, then on to Bangkok. The final stretch through Malaysia to Singapore is the easiest of the Asian legs to book and ride.

There is no single season for an 18,755 km route. Western Europe is most comfortable by rail in late spring and early autumn. Siberia and Mongolia are cold for much of the year, and the Moscow–Beijing run is best in the warmer months. Southeast Asia is hot and wet from roughly May to October and drier from November to March.

The bigger constraint is not weather but access. Border rules, visa regimes and service suspensions change the route more than the calendar does, so check conditions close to your travel date.

Every stop on the route has an airport within about an hour, so you can join or leave the line almost anywhere. That makes it easy to treat each city as a base: stay a few nights, take day trips by train in both directions, then fly home and return for the next section later.

Book accommodation near the main station in each city. On the long Asian legs the station is often some distance from the centre, and a late arrival plus a cross-city transfer is the part of the trip that goes wrong.

Check your passport has room for the stamps and at least six months of validity beyond the end of the trip. Depending on your nationality you may need visas or e-permits for the Schengen area, Belarus, Russia, Mongolia, China, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. The Belarus and Russia visas are the hardest to obtain.

The route itself only needs single-entry visas, but doubling back or adding a side trip such as Hong Kong means a second entry, so a multi-entry visa is worth considering. Carry printed copies of bookings and visas; not every border post has reliable internet.