The Adventurists – The World’s Greatest Voyages

Imagine the craziest journey you’ve ever completed – maybe you’ve run a marathon, completed Tough Mudder, or even climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Congratulations for these achievements, but be warned – they are about to look like a walkover.

Have you ever considered driving to Mongolia from London in a M-reg  Nissan Micra? How about sailing across the Indian Ocean in a hollowed out tree with a bed-sheet for a sail? Flying across the United States with a fan-powered parachute?

Introducing: The Adventurists – an organization fighting to make the world less boring. They host six assortments of absolutely bonkers rallies, journeying across the planet in nonsensical transport.

They are fighting against the inhumane comfort of modern life, and the elimination of danger from our existence:

“Our planet used to slap us about the face-cheeks with iron fists of adventure every day.  Maps had edges to walk off. Men feared the monsters that swam the seas. Entire civilisations lay unknown.

But now, the entire surface of the Earth has been scanned by satellites and shovelled into your mobile phone tagged with twattery about which restaurant serves the best mocha-latte-frappeshite.”

These rallies are the ultimate physical tests of human grit, and the danger involved isn’t a joke – as the disclaimer on the site warns:

“You may have guessed, but these are genuinely dangerous things to do.

The website is written in a light-hearted fashion but you cannot overestimate the risks involved in taking part in these adventures.

Your chances of being seriously injured or dying as a result of taking part are high. Individuals who have taken part in the past have been permanently disfigured, seriously disabled or lost their life.

These are not holidays. These are adventures and so by their very nature extremely risky.

You really are putting both your health and life at risk.

That’s the whole point.”

In 2004, Tom Morgan fancied an adventure, so he cast an eye over a map of the world. Living in Czech Republic at the time, he pondered where the stupidest place he could drive to would be. He decided on Outer Mongolia – and he jumped in his car and set off.

The following year he repeated this adventure, this time with six teams, and the rest is history. The Adventurists has since grown into an international folly, with over 12,000 people having completed – or should I say having taken part in – one of their rallies.

Mongol Rally

The group’s pioneering rally has been proclaimed the ‘greatest’ on the planet, and it would take a brave person to contest this claim. The rally spans 10,000 miles across the mountains, desert and savannah of Europe and Asia each summer, with no set route and no support – just a car full of buccaneers, packed into a laughably small vehicle.

The rules of the Rally are gloriously simple…

1. You can only take a farcically small vehicle – 1 litre engine or less.
2. You’re completely on your own – The Adventurists won’t help you.
3. You’ve got to raise at least £1000 for charity.

“The Mongol Rally is about getting lost, using your long neglected wits, raising shedloads of cash for charity and scraping into the finish line with your vehicle in tatters and a wild grin smeared across your grubby face.”

This year’s rally, launching on July 17th, gives ralliers just under two months to cross the finish line in a new destination, Ulan Ude, Siberia, after passing through Mongolia.

There are a few set stops for ralliers to congregate and party, but other than that, ralliers must take their own route – the ‘un-route’ as the Adventurists call it – they only provide a starting and finishing point.

Fancy it? You can sign up here.

Rickshaw Run

“If God had made machines he probably wouldn’t have bothered with a Rickshaw.”

When you’ve seen India on the TV, you’ve probably noticed these eccentric three wheeled golf-buggies stuck in traffic, beeping their horns frantically. They are Rickshaws, or Tuk-Tuks if you would rather, and the Adventurists thought it would be a good idea to drive the span of the world’s seventh largest country in one.

“Essentially, it’s not a very good idea. It’s not very fast, it smells, it falls over when you go round corners, it breaks down more often than an emo teenager and a day’s driving feels like you’ve been kicked up the arse by an elephant.”

The run follows the “un-route” format, however there are three different starting and finishing points, each providing its own unique challenges.  You can cross India from North East to South, South to North West, or North West to North East.

You will be faced with some of the world’s most hazardous highways, Himalaya Mountains, the river Ganges, the jungle, the desert, dangerous strangers and dodgy food. However on the flipside there are stunning coastal roads, crazy parties, and once-in-a-lifetime incredible experiences.

The Ice Run

“You, a crap antique Russian motorcycle and the deepest lake in the world”

This particular adventure will send you over 600km across Russia’s unpredictable Lake Baikal, riding an old vehicle that resembles Wallace and Gromit’s favoured means of transport, in arctic conditions.

The bikes – They’re old and don’t respond terribly well to the cold. The ignition and batteries have been improved and they have been given all studded tyres, but they were not designed for the Ice Run; that’s sort of the point.  They weren’t reliable in factory condition, and age has not wearied them in this regard.

The cold – At minus 20 a 25 mph wind will take the air temperature down to minus 35. At this temperature even Arctic foxes can freeze to death.

The terrain – Parts of the ice will be sculpted by the wind and smooth as a baby’s buttock, other bits will be cracked like a builders bum.  The route up the lake will not be a straight line, this much is safe to assume.

The Icarus Trophy

This is the world’s first long-distance paramotor race. What’s a paramotor? It’s essentially a parachute with a fan on the back. And how long do the Adventurers expect you to fly one for? For three weeks – over 10,000km from North-West to South-West USA. Yeah…

“Pilots all start in one place with a paramotor on our backs and finish up in another one – a bloody long way away. In between these two points one of the greatest adventures on the planet is waiting to slap you about the chops.

Unsupported means you’ll be flying with everything you need to survive strapped to your very person. If you get lost, it’s down to you to get yourself unlost.

The Icarus Trophy is a real timed race but first it’s an adventure. That means you don’t have to be super competitive to take part. We always find the people who come in last have the best stories to tell.”

Mongol Derby

If you’re more of an equestrian lunatic than petrol-head nutter, then the Adventurists have a solution for you.  With the Mongol Derby, you can ride a small horse 1,000km through treacherous Mongolian terrain.

 

“The Mongol Derby is the longest and toughest horse race in the world. The 1000km course recreates Genghis Khaan’s legendary empire-busting postal system, with riders changing horse every 40km, and living with herders or camping under the stars.

Each year around 40 professional, semi-professional and enthusiastic amateur riders compete against each other for the derby crown. To stand a chance of finishing riders must balance survival skills and horsemanship and to stand a chance of winning an extra level of determination and no small amount of luck is required.

Enduring the elements, semi-wild horses as well as unfamiliar food and terrain, completing the derby is an achievement few can boast.”

As per Adventurer usual, there is no marked course, nor tour guide, just a start and finish line. The course consists of 25 horse-stations where you must swap horse and refuel.

Ngalawa Cup

This race is possibly the craziest of them all, albeit arguably the most picturesque. The Adventurists first aquatic rally was never going to entail a mild-winded sail from the Solent to Cowes in a 40-foot yacht. No – the setting is the Indian Ocean, just off the coast of Tanzania. The vehicle of choice is a hollowed out mango tree with a bedsheet as a sail, all hand-tied together with some string.   A Ngalawa, the locals call it.

“It turns out a hollowed mango tree takes on more water than a fibreglass boat. In fact, they take on water like a thirsty camel with undiagnosed diabetes, so it’s advisable to pack only the bare essentials.

You will be exposed to the elements as you stick out of your boat like a sore thumb, and chances are you will have to patch up your boat as you go along if it gets too leaky.”

For nine days adventurers sail through the beautiful islands of Zanzibar, sleeping on remote and indigenous pastures. They will come face to face with inquisitive locals, barracudas, stingrays and monkeys as well as an over-abundance of other remarkable species. The weather and ocean are known to be unpredictable, and as ever, danger is rife.

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