Wales fan makes 3,000-mile trip (mostly) overland

John McAllister travelled for more than a month before arriving in Kazakhstan ahead of Thursday's game

About 1,000 hardcore Wales football fans have been arriving in Astana over the past few days after flying 3,000 miles (4,800km) to Kazakhstan for a World Cup qualifier.

It has been described as the "most awkward away fixture" in European football.

But one fan has gone above and beyond, spending more than a month making the journey almost completely overland by public transport.

John McAllister, 26, set out from Barry railway station, Vale of Glamorgan, in late July, travelling through Europe before crossing into Central Asia, arriving in Astana ahead of the game.

"I'd fancied doing a big overland trip for a while, and it worked out fairly well," said Mr McAllister, who recently quit his job in a coffee shop to run his own YouTube travel channel, which funds his trips.

He said the planning for the first half of the trip to Istanbul was straightforward, but after that things were a little more "off the cuff".

He took a train for 36 hours across Turkey before crossing into Georgia – one of the highlights of the trip was Tbilisi, the capital, which he described as a "very, very good city".

It was also where he ended up joining a stag do.

Mr McAllister said he was doing some sightseeing wearing a Wales shirt, when someone approached him asking if he was Welsh.

"It turned out he was from a village two miles from where I lived, and he'd been living in Tbilisi for 15 years," he said.

The man invited Mr McAllister to a stag do that evening, and he stayed out "until about four o'clock in the morning", outlasting much of the stag group.

Other highlights included staying with friends of friends and attending football matches in Belgrade, Serbia, as well as joining what he was told was the "biggest ever music festival" in Kazakhstan, with 80,000 people.

John McAllister set out on a train from Barry in July

From Georgia, Mr McAllister had planned to cross into Azerbaijan, from where he would cross the Caspian Sea into Kazakhstan, but the land border was closed.

"My only options from there were into Russia or Iran, but they weren't feasible," he said.

Instead he caught a flight to Atyrau in western Kazakhstan, choosing that as his destination because he "had never heard of it".

"It turns out it was the hub for the Kazakh oil and gas industry, so it was quite well connected and had nice hotels and a decent selection of pubs and restaurants," he said.

Wales face Kazakhstan at Astana Arena on Thursday afternoon

From there he flew to Almaty, in south-eastern Kazakhstan, before catching the train the rest of the way to Astana.

Speaking to the BBC the day before the match, Mr McAllister said there was a good atmosphere in the city as Welsh fans began arriving.

The night before he had taken a number of them to an ice hockey match.

Asked about Wales' chances in the match, Mr McAllister said it was going to be a "tricky game".

"But if we want to qualify [for the World Cup] then we've got to win," he said.

He also said he would not be making the return journey overland, but would instead join the other fans flying home.

"People keep asking me what's next, but I don't know. Definitely a rest period when I get home, but after that we'll see," he said.