Sunday 26 May, at about 6am, I will hop on the faithful Birdy folding bike and cycle from Ravières to Montbard – the first of about 125 stages of #CrossBorderRail. Over the 5 weeks that follow I will travel more than 13000km, and investigate 35 new railway borders, most of them in non-EU South East Europe, although I have to head north first – to attend an event in Tallinn on 30 May – a rather large detour!

This is the map of where I am going, and the detailed (and current) schedule is always the one in Nextcloud – Planned Routes spreadsheet.

This is a summary schedule:
26 May – Ravières – Montbard – Paris – Köln – Hamburg – Travemünde, onto night ferry
27 May – Arrival of night ferry, Malmö C – Stockholm, onto night ferry
28 May – Arrival of night ferry, Turku – Kupittaa – Helsinki
29 May – Helsinki – Tallinn
31 May – Tallinn – Lelle – Pärnu – Häädemeeste
01 Jun – Häädemeeste – Salacgrīva – Skulte – Jūrmala
02 Jun – Jūmala – Rīga – Vilnius
03 Jun – Vilnius – Warszawa, onto night train
04 Jun – Arrival of night train, Budapest – Pécs – Beli Manastir – Osijek – Zagreb
05 Jun – Zagreb – Vinkovci – Tovarnik – Šid – Ruma – Zvornik
08 Jun – Sarajevo – Mostar – Čapljina – Sarajevo
09 Jun – Sarajevo – Maglaj – Doboj
10 Jun – Doboj – Banja Luka – Dobrljin – Novi Grad
11 Jun – Novi Grad – Bihać – Zagreb
12 Jun – Zagreb – Ljubljana
13 Jun – Ljubljana – Šapjane – Rijeka – Pula – Divača
14 Jun – Divača – Ljubljana – Celje – Imeno – Rogatec – Đurmanec – Lepoglava – Varaždin – Čakovec
15 Jun – Čakovec – Središce – Kotoriba – Koprivnica – Osijek
16 Jun – Osijek – Vinkovci – Gunja – Strizivojna-Vrpolje – Osijek
17 Jun – Osijek – Erdut – Bogojevo – Prigrevica – Apatin – Sombor – Subotica – Röszke – Kikinda
18 Jun – Kikinda – Jimbolia – Timișoara – Stamora Moravița – Vršac – Beograd
19 Jun – Beograd – Požega – Kraljevo – Rudnica – Kraljevo
20 Jun – Kraljevo – Stalać – Niš – Pirot – Dimitrovgrad – Dragoman – Sofia
21 Jun – Sofia – Kjustendil – Kriva Palanka – Skopje
22 Jun – Skopje – Tabanovce – Blace – Skopje
24 Jun – Skopje – Gevgelija – Polykastro – Thessaloniki – Florina
25 Jun – Florina – Kristallopigi – Bilisht – Struga
26 Jun – Struga – Skopje – Prishtinë
27 Jun – Prishtinë – Pejë – Prishtinë – Tirana
28 Jun – Tirana – Durrës-Plazh – Elbasan – Tirana
29 Jun – Tirana – Shkodër – Podgorica, onto night train
30 Jun – Arrival of night train, Beograd – Zagreb, onto night train
01 Jul – Arrival of night train, Zürich – Lausanne – Dijon – Nuits-sous-Ravières
(the dates missing from this list are rest days)

This project is only possible thanks to crowd funding – 129 individual donations have made this project possible, and I am super grateful for all of the contributions! I will even be able to pay myself the minimum wage throughout the trip.

So how do you follow what I will be doing?

This year there will be a daily thread on Mastodon only – you can follow me @jon@gruene.social. For those not on Mastodon, there will also be a Live Blog each day on this website, with the Live Blogs going live automatically each project day. You can also subscribe to these via RSS. Major project updates (like this one) will also be sent by email, but there will be no email notifications about Live Blogs.

There will be a live video each morning and evening of the project – streamed onto Peertube (RSS feed of those here).

There will also be a few intermittent posts on Bluesky, LinkedIn and Facebook too, but those will mostly link to content elsewhere. The best photos will be uploaded to my Flickr channel, although out of experience many of the photos might only be uploaded some days after having been taken!

There are some events I will be attending and co-organising throughout the trip, but because my networks are weaker in South East Europe than elsewhere, these are fewer than during previous projects. If you would like to organise a small meeting, or say hello en route, then do contact me! You are especially all welcome to come along for #CrossBorderRail Compact between Zagreb and Beograd/Sarajevo on 5-6 June. There will also be a webinar on 9 July where I will present the first conclusions of this 2024 project – do sign up!