2022 - Banger/cheap car rally - Recommendations?
Discussion
Hi All,
For years my wife and I have considered doing a group rally FUN event.
Things that have seemed interesting: - Dumball, - Rickshaw Run, - mongol - HERO events
However, there seem to be LOADS of events out there, but very poorly advertised. Also, with 2020 and now 2021 being what they are, it seems to have potentially killed a few of these off.
Here's what I'm after:
- Location. NOT Western Europe/Canada/USA/Oz/NZ (I want something a lot more exotic)
- With backup. So mechanics. Or, you travel in a convoy and help each other out.
- Age Group. We're in our mid/late 30's. Some of the mega budget rallies are for 18-21yr olds. Unfortunately, that;s not us anymore.
- Time. Maximum of 3 weeks.
- Car age. I don't want to spend a fortune on a car, not do I want something that'll breakdown. Air cone would be great!
- Fully organised with hotels and FUN. I'd rather not camp in a layby. Hotels, no matter if they're cheap. So that everyone meets up, there's a lot of camaraderie and FUN!
So any recommendations?
Thanks
For years my wife and I have considered doing a group rally FUN event.
Things that have seemed interesting: - Dumball, - Rickshaw Run, - mongol - HERO events
However, there seem to be LOADS of events out there, but very poorly advertised. Also, with 2020 and now 2021 being what they are, it seems to have potentially killed a few of these off.
Here's what I'm after:
- Location. NOT Western Europe/Canada/USA/Oz/NZ (I want something a lot more exotic)
- With backup. So mechanics. Or, you travel in a convoy and help each other out.
- Age Group. We're in our mid/late 30's. Some of the mega budget rallies are for 18-21yr olds. Unfortunately, that;s not us anymore.
- Time. Maximum of 3 weeks.
- Car age. I don't want to spend a fortune on a car, not do I want something that'll breakdown. Air cone would be great!
- Fully organised with hotels and FUN. I'd rather not camp in a layby. Hotels, no matter if they're cheap. So that everyone meets up, there's a lot of camaraderie and FUN!
So any recommendations?
Thanks
Hey,
So i did the mongol rally back in 2017 and it was honestly the greatest experince iv had. I would highly recommend doing it but Id recommend alocating about 6-10 weeks if not more if possible. On your 3 week requirement, id recomment the tuk tuk run. Im thinking of doing it in 2022. One of the people that convoyed with us on the rally was a profressional videographer who recorded the rally but had also done the tuk tuk run a couple of times and it came heavily recommened to check out. Its not as wild as the rally but looks like a great experience.
So i did the mongol rally back in 2017 and it was honestly the greatest experince iv had. I would highly recommend doing it but Id recommend alocating about 6-10 weeks if not more if possible. On your 3 week requirement, id recomment the tuk tuk run. Im thinking of doing it in 2022. One of the people that convoyed with us on the rally was a profressional videographer who recorded the rally but had also done the tuk tuk run a couple of times and it came heavily recommened to check out. Its not as wild as the rally but looks like a great experience.
Not sure if it fits your spec really. I have done the Motoscape rally 3 times, twice with my wife in an old 944 with 240k miles on the clock; and once with 3 mates who were all 40 in the same year. We used a Skoda Octavia.
Not expensive, car was cheap (Octavia) and Porsche over 20 years old (and we got our money back when we sold it).
Age range mid-late 20s up to 60s. Good range of people attending, fun car decorations, interesting daily challenges, great trip from Venice to Prague through bits of Europe we had never been before. Trip takes a week and bit heavy going on a couple of days (too much of an autobahn slog on one day) but mostly interesting with alpine passes; bits of Italy ... and then you can make your own route to potter home and spread over a week if you want, or sit by the pool for a few days before hacking it back in a couple of fast days (which is what we did the first year - few days in Venice then a Trains, Planes and Automobiles moment after the clutch blew France side at the bottom of the Mont Blanc tunnel mountain on way home!!!). Groups tend to be friendly, bit of fun team rivalry if you are up for the challenges, and good evening drinks etc... if you want some social life (but you don’t have to go for it, and most things are outside the hotel so you are not in a noisy environment if that’s not what you want).
As far as helping others out ... Motoscape participants are a good bunch and super helpful. Usually a mechanic in a team that can assist with minor issues even if only giving pointers. Trick is to find a half decent car, shake it down for a month or two so it is sorted before you go, then get RAC Euro recovery in my experience. When the clutch popped they: recovered us; got us a hotel; got the local hire car guy to come out at 9am on a Sunday (when he wasn’t normally open) to get us a one way rental to Calais; taxi to from the hire car drop-off in Calais town to the ferry terminal; hire car from the ferry terminal to home; and transported the car back 10days or so later once they had had a mechanic look at it and we had said no to the quoted repair. No excess so all this for our £120 or so premium. Definitely the way to go in my opinion.
Also I would love to do some of those rallies you listed, but (assuming you haven’t done one before) they can be a bit hardcore / brutal, and many (Rickshaw for example) definitely do not have mechanical back-up. Something like the Motoscape is quite a good intro to what you can do and whether it is for you before you go full throttle on one of the more hardcore ones (assuming you haven’t done anything like this before.
Hope that helps?
Not expensive, car was cheap (Octavia) and Porsche over 20 years old (and we got our money back when we sold it).
Age range mid-late 20s up to 60s. Good range of people attending, fun car decorations, interesting daily challenges, great trip from Venice to Prague through bits of Europe we had never been before. Trip takes a week and bit heavy going on a couple of days (too much of an autobahn slog on one day) but mostly interesting with alpine passes; bits of Italy ... and then you can make your own route to potter home and spread over a week if you want, or sit by the pool for a few days before hacking it back in a couple of fast days (which is what we did the first year - few days in Venice then a Trains, Planes and Automobiles moment after the clutch blew France side at the bottom of the Mont Blanc tunnel mountain on way home!!!). Groups tend to be friendly, bit of fun team rivalry if you are up for the challenges, and good evening drinks etc... if you want some social life (but you don’t have to go for it, and most things are outside the hotel so you are not in a noisy environment if that’s not what you want).
As far as helping others out ... Motoscape participants are a good bunch and super helpful. Usually a mechanic in a team that can assist with minor issues even if only giving pointers. Trick is to find a half decent car, shake it down for a month or two so it is sorted before you go, then get RAC Euro recovery in my experience. When the clutch popped they: recovered us; got us a hotel; got the local hire car guy to come out at 9am on a Sunday (when he wasn’t normally open) to get us a one way rental to Calais; taxi to from the hire car drop-off in Calais town to the ferry terminal; hire car from the ferry terminal to home; and transported the car back 10days or so later once they had had a mechanic look at it and we had said no to the quoted repair. No excess so all this for our £120 or so premium. Definitely the way to go in my opinion.
Also I would love to do some of those rallies you listed, but (assuming you haven’t done one before) they can be a bit hardcore / brutal, and many (Rickshaw for example) definitely do not have mechanical back-up. Something like the Motoscape is quite a good intro to what you can do and whether it is for you before you go full throttle on one of the more hardcore ones (assuming you haven’t done anything like this before.
Hope that helps?
I've done screwball rally twice,this years looking a bit dodgy, its a good rally,great bunch of like minded lunatics, usually around 2k in 5 days ,interesting roads no set route just a final campsite destination, all for your chosen charity,so lots of fun decorating your chosen cheap chariot!
I've done screwball rally twice,this years looking a bit dodgy, its a good rally,great bunch of like minded lunatics, usually around 2k in 5 days ,interesting roads no set route just a final campsite destination, all for your chosen charity,so lots of fun decorating your chosen cheap chariot!
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