Marrakech Express 2025
Racing Across Europe
My diary of a one-week race across Europe
with my retired mum. No flights allowed!
How did we get into this? It’s my fault
Mum is a passionate follower of the TV show Race Across the World, in which features teams of two backpack competitively on a tight budget. She loves the show so much, in fact, that she has (unsuccessfully) tried to persuade various family members to form a team and apply for the show with her.
Anyone who knows Mum's travel style would find this surprising. Her usual travel style is a cruise with published itinerary and strict timetable, and she likes to arrive thirty minutes early for every train and book hotels far in advance. Backpacking with no bed booked tonight is not her usual style at all.
In 2023 I came across a short report by travel journalist Simon Calder, describing a trans-Europe race. The concept: leave London on a Saturday and arrive in Istanbul one week later. Surprise checkpoints must be visited en route, making advance planning impossible. Public transport only, no flights allowed. Prizes for arriving first. That sounds awesome. I really wished I had been involved. An idea popped into my head and refused to go away.
When two events were announced for 2025, I contacted Mum. I couldn’t join the Race TV show – but would she be interested in joining me in this short, one-week version instead?
She spent a few days reading the details before coming back with a one-word answer: YES.
We signed ourselves up for a springtime event, departing London and finishing in Marrakech one week later. The first checkpoint would be Paris, and other checkpoints were kept secret until the start line.
The prizes on offer for this particular event were:
fastest finisher (for the person or team who arrives at the finish line first)
lowest spender (for the person or team who spends the least on their tickets)
most countries (for the person or team visiting most countries/territories between the start line and the finish line)
I was not sure how the experience would go. I love this type of travel. But we would be forced to spend a lot of time together. Look, we chat on the phone together all the time! But when travelling, we are very different people, as you can see:
| Mum | Me |
|---|---|
| Likes to arrive 30 minutes early for the train - doing otherwise is risky | Likes to arrive 2 minutes early for the train - doing otherwise is wasteful |
| Morning person | Night person |
| Doesn't like sweet foods | Lives on Nutella and pancakes |
| Finds travel research tedious | Finds travel research exciting |
| "Roughing it" is when the bus arrives after 9pm | "Roughing it" is when the bus leaves before 7am |
Being forced to spend the entire week together, despite such deep differences – well, it might not go smoothly. As we started preparing, more than one of Mum’s friends said, “Aren’t you worried you will fall out?”
I didn’t worry about falling out! We have been on weekends away together before and we always have fun. My real concern was that I'd persuaded Mum into something that might prove more stressful than fun. I really hope not – I think we can manage to make it a lot of fun, and not break the bank. Still, it’s important to get on the same page, so we discussed what would be our non-negotiables.
As a morning person, Mum has a low tolerance for late finishes. And I am not keen on sleeping in a bus seat these days. We both agreed very quickly, then, that we would always find a bed for the night (rather than an overnight bus). After chatting, eventually we landed on a set of… let’s call them Unwritten Guidelines? for ourselves, that we both agreed on fully. Just to make sure we both knew what we were letting ourselves in for.
We had also discussed whether to buy a Interrail Pass but decided to buy point-to-point tickets once the route became clear. We did prebook a cheap Eurostar ticket from London to Paris, though, to start us off.
As we got closer to the date, Lupine Travel announcements began to distribute some statistics. It turns out that Mum was the oldest participant in the event! That has made her both proud and a bit nervous, I think.
Our Unwritten Guidelines
No overnight buses, or buses that arrive in the middle of the night.
We won’t be chasing the fastest, cheapest, or most-countries prizes – we intend to just have fun and explore along the route.
We will avoid long days of travel if we possibly can - we want to see things.
We’ll prioritise trains over buses where possible, as we find them more comfortable for long journeys.
When making choices about routes, we will prioritise going to new places, that neither of us have visited before.
Would we change the Guidelines?
Should we have bought an Interrail Pass?
Our post-trip thoughts on whether we should have bought an Interrail Pass