WINCHESTER traveller John Pilkington is about to embark on his latest foreign adventure.

But not for him a repeat of his exotic previous journeys through the Andes or up the Mekong River.

This time the 65-year-old is heading for Eastern Europe: the Ukraine, Russia and the Caucausus.

It will be the nearest John has come to a war zone as there is civil conflict in parts of the Ukraine between ethnic Ukrainians and Russians.

John, of Culverwell Gardens, said he was not seeking to venture close to the frontline.

He plans to start at Kraków in Poland and visit the Auschwitz extermination camp before heading through the Carpathian Mountains and down into the Ukraine.

John aims to visit six little-known places, labelled by the international community as 'breakaway' states: Transnystria, Crimea, People's Republic of Donetsk, People's Republic of Luhansk, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The only state that recognises any of them is Russia.

He will get along with people with a mixture of schoolboy O-level Russian and his natural charm and friendliness.

“I don't take sides; I love the Russian and the Ukrainian peoples. I am not going to so do anything reckless or silly. Russia and Ukraine is perfectly safe to travel in.”

There is no sign he is about to put his feet up at home. “I hope still to be doing this as long as I can walk and talk. I might walk a little more slowly and I don't feel the need to prove myself. I just love what I do.

“The last three trips have been such fun; the Balkans in 2013, Afghanistan in 2011 and the 'Axis of Evil' Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran in 2009. But I'm looking forward to this one more than any other.”

John leaves on Monday and plans to be back in October.