What is the Silk Road

The Silk Road conjures up evocative images of a fanciful era when caravans of camels, mules and horses transported everything from spices and jade to walnuts and, of course, silk between China and the West along a series of lengthy and complex routes.

Associated with brave adventurers like Marco Polo, romantic poets like Coleridge, and legendary trading hubs, Samarkand and Kashgar, that still bask in their former glory to this day, the Silk Road represents for modern travelers a highway laden with myth. It traverses China’s less explored desert fringes, the underdeveloped Caucasus and the intriguing ‘Stans’, countries that used to be hidden behind the Iron Curtain, but that are now safe to explore.