Journey of a lifetime (4)

How do you ensure participants are able to pass safely through the many different countries on the journey?

Each participant in the rally requires six visas. It took us more than three months to do all the paperwork.

We have dedicated local partners in every country at the relevant bureaus. We inform them well in advance of our date of arrival so they know we are coming.

It isn't every day that they see a caravan of drivers from Europe or China crossing their border.

This preparation helps us avoid something unpleasant, like someone being stuck in a customs office for a day with no explanation. That can spoil the trip.

This year, Chinese drivers join the rally for the first time. How are you managing their expectations?

Chinese drivers want to devote more time to the European leg of the journey. Europeans usually want to get out of Europe as quickly as possible and leave more time for Central Asia and China.

The history of automobile ownership is also shorter in China, so we don't see Chinese drivers in the rally with vintage cars. They prefer to drive something newer.

At the same time, they are usually less experienced with long-distance drives than the Europeans. We took that into account when preparing them for the rally.

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