Definitive guide. -- Conde Nast Traveler (USA) The best specialist guidebook is The Trans-Siberian Handbook . -- The Independent (UK) The Trans-Siberian Handbook ...is a must. -- T he Sunday Times (UK)

Bryn Thomas was born in Zimbabwe where he grew up on a farm. Since graduating from Durham University with a degree in anthropology, travel on five continents has included a Saharan journey in a home-built kit-car, a solo 1600-mile cycle ride through the Andes, ten Himalayan treks and 30,000 miles of rail travel. Publications include Lonely Planet's guides to India (three editions), Goa (two editions) and Britain (three editions: 1993-2000), and Trailblazer's Trans-Siberian Handbook (all six editions) and Trekking in the Annapurna Region (all four editions). In 1992 he set up Trailblazer, to produce the series of route guides for adventurous travelers that has now grown to 35 titles. This seventh edition was researched and updated by James Pitkin. Educated at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio where he graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in English, he spent four years working as an editor and features writer for The Prague Post in the Czech Republic. He updated the Insight Guide to Prague and has had travel stories and political features published in New York Press, Prague's Think magazine, Berlin's City magazine and the journal NGO News Eastern Europe. He lives in Washington State where he is a news reporter for The Wenatchee World.