Organisation - 1 of many?

Visas
The largest single class of thing that needs organising is visas. I spent ages working through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Travel Advice and filling in a spreadsheet.

The following map shows countries that are on my route and need visas in advance in Orange, with Red for really awkward countries.


Biggest problems are:
Turkmenistan - where they have transit and tourist visas. Web hearsay indicates that one could be refused the former, so the latter is safer but you need to be invited and met at the border by an approved travel agent. Visas are only valid 45 days from issue and for 30 days. Starting from London, that'd be a bit of a tight schedule. Also, you can only go in if you have a visa for the next country, which from London would be Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan only allow you in if you have visas for both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Aaaaargh!
Libya - who want an Arabic translation of your passport personal info page on a stamped-in format and you also have to hire a guide for $45/day and travel with them.
Laos - who keep changing their visa terms and whose nearest consulate is in Paris.

Carnet
A "Carnet de Passages en Douanes" is a bond that UK travellers driving abroad need to take out via the RAC. You have to provide a multiple of the vehicle value as security against import duties that would be due if you fail to take your vehicle out of a country you've visited. This is well described elsewhere.
Unfortunately, Egypt requires 800% of the value the vehicle would have there, so just driving a £10K car through Egypt would end up costing about £4.6K. Ouch!

Company
As it'd be MUCH better to do the trip with someone else, I have a friend who I hope will go with me. I asked, and he doesn't currently want to be identified in this blog, so I've decided to identify him as N.
This is (randomly) inspired by the Roman Catholic Eucharistic Prayer II:
"Lord, remember your Church throughout the world; make us grow in love, together with N. our Pope, N. our bishop, and all the clergy."

Although N is keen, he's currently gone away to decide whether he really wants to drive around the world (as opposed to reducing his mortgage) and whether he wants to go this August/September (as opposed to improving his CV until next Spring to make things easier when he gets back).
Based on that, my plans are pretty much in limbo until he decides (or I decide otherwise). As N has an extremely suitable 4x4, I can't even think about vehicle preparations.

I feel I have a pretty fair idea of the prep that needs doing, and that most of it can't be done a very long way in advance of leaving. So I can do some of the other things and just wait to push the "red button".