Before planning a recent extended backpacking trip through Asia I went to some of my most well traveled friends for advice. They all had a lot of interesting points to make but it wasn’t long before it became very clear that there is no such thing as broad travel tips for Asia. As a location it’s just too big and it turns out asking for travel advice for Asia in general isn’t too far off from saying, “Hey, I’m thinking of going for a walk somewhere on Earth. What do you think?” It seems things have to be narrowed down a bit before you can extract any useful information from even the most well traveled among us. Which is not to say that they didn’t offer some great tips for portions of Asia. One of my friends had some very interesting things to say about the Silk Road and train travel in Asia while another spent almost all of his time in South East Asia and had a lot to say about the beaches. Regardless, know what you’re asking for.