I appear to be in a Silk Road bubble presently – which I am loving.

Focus on the region keeps intensifying thanks to an expansion in media coverage. This includes films such as The Eagle Huntress, documentaries by the BBC and the UNWTO’s International Year of Sustainable Tourism’s Silk Road Programme. As illustrated in these photos I also highly recommend the Magic Lantern Festival whose theme this year is ‘Explore the Silk Road’.

Nomadic Thoughts are experiencing an upturn in interest from clients wishing to learn more about the Silk Road, and to experience it first-hand.

In addition to all this I am also reading Peter Frankopan’s superb book ‘The Silk Roads – A New History of the World’.

I hope the combination of all these influences will whet your appetite to delve further into what is surely is one of the most remarkable collection of destinations in the world. Whether travelling East to West virtually or in reality, you will discover a huge variety of places: the autonomous Gobi Desert expanses of China; the Mongolian and Eurasian Steppes; routes through central Asia, the Middle East and the bible-lands of Palestine. Moreover, tales of silks and spice resonate through the Stans, Iraq, Persia, Turkey and Eastern Europe.

Peter Frankopan’s book offers an astounding century-by-century trail of events and folk stories that make up the rich unfolding history. It is a 7,000 km thriller with more than its fair share of love, deception, trade, religion, brutality, hardship, disease, heroism, ingenuity, magic and mystery.

Today’s visitors can lose themselves in a marvellous tangle of cultures, creeds and countryside. You will come to appreciate how the combined forces of commerce, religion and power have shaped the development of arguably the world’s most famous travel route. You too can tread in the footsteps not only of past traders, prophets and generals, but also of some of history’s most dynamic travellers, such as Alexander the Great, Zhang Qian, Marco Polo, Confucius, Genghis Khan, Jesus, the Buddha and the Prophet Mohammed.