Barcelona Express 2018

July 2018

The Challenge

Hitchhike as fast as possible from the heart of Europe to Barcelona and win a trip around the world!

The adventure of a lifetime

5 stages, 6 days, 1000 miles

How to participate?

Gather a team of 2 or 3 adventurers.
Pick your starting location (Amsterdam, Brussels or Paris), and think of a strategy to get to Barcelona as fast as possible with only your thumb :)

The Big Prize

300 teams will compete for the ultimate prize:
A trip around the World. All members of the team will receive enough airmiles to visit every continent of the world. At least 6 stops per person are included in the ticket.

Five Stages

The Race to Barcelona will be split up into 5 different stages. At the end of every stage every team’s time will be recorded and even people at home will be able to see the daily ranking on our website.

The end of every stage is always a unique location such as castles, river banks, beautiful beaches and medieval cities. Participants will be able to camp on site and parties will be hosted for all hitchhikers. Every morning, teams will receive the daily instructions on how to get to the next stage.

Checkpoints

There will be checkpoints on every stage and along the route. On some of these world famous landmarks you will be able to win time bonifications!

The Jerseys

Just like in the most famous races of the world, jerseys will be awarded to the daily champions. The yellow jersey will be attributed to the team with the best overall time. The green jersey goes to the best performing team during the challenges on the checkpoints, and the polka dot jersey goes to the craziest team of the day

How to register?

A Ticket for this once-in-a-lifetime adventure costs 210 GBP / 250 EUR per person. You will be able to gather sponsors for your team so it could actually cost you nothing at all

Sponsors?

The Barcelona Express ticket is 250€. You can opt to pay the total sum all by yourself or you can ask sponsorship money to friends, family, surrounding businesses, acquaintances. A sponsorship ticket will only cost them 25€ (every participant receives 10 sponsorship tickets, which you will find in your personal login zone).

Your sponsors will be printed on your personal race jersey and on your team page where friends and family will be able to follow you LIVE during the race.

Charity

By hitchhiking to Barcelona, we already save 400 metric tons of CO2.

Besides this, the revenues of The Barcelona Express go to charity. We have deliberately chosen to fund a project which will plant as many trees as possible. We strongly believe that this way we can efficiently build on a better future and fight for a better world. For every Euro, our partner “The International Tree Foundation”, will be able to plant as much as 3 trees. In 2017 we helped planting 122.000 trees. We hope to break that record in 2018!!

The Wall of Fame

General Info

When is it?

Well, that depends on your start point! You can start in Amsterdam, Paris or Brussels:

>> Sunday morning July 1st from Amsterdam

>>Monday morning July 2nd from Brussels (flemish-speaking series)

>>Tuesday morning July 3rd from Brussels (french-speaking series)

>>Wednesday morning July 4th from Paris

After five stages we arrive in Barcelona (Amsterdam series and Brussels series 1 on friday afternoon, Brussels series 2 on saturday afternoon and Paris Series on sunday afternoon). Everybody can stay 1 night on the campsite in Barcelona. You can optionally book extra nights on that campsite (Camping Tres Estrellas) via our booking system (10€ per person per night)

Finals?

On Saturday the 28th of july 2018 a final Hitchhiking stage will be organized somewhere in Europe for the top 3 teams from each series. The winning team of this final stage wins a trip around the world.

Sleeping?

We foresee a camping spot on unique places at the end of every stage. It is required that every participant has his or her own camping material (tent + sleeping bag). The locations will always be on a splendid place. We’ll stop at huge castle domains, river banks, beautiful beaches and also historical cities.

Food?

Food is not standard included in the price of the race. We do have an excellent staff of mobile kitchen heroes who join us along the route. They will serve you breakfast and dinner for 70 EUR / 60 GBP at every stage of the race.

Safety

All teams receive a GPS tracker. This way the organization knows where the teams are located at any time.

Because hitchhiking is not without risk, we would like to give you the following advice:

>> Choose a safe hitchhiking spot, do not recklessly jump in front of car along busy roads! Never let somebody drop you off at the side of the motorway: it's illegal, and you'll never be able to catch a ride from such a spot! It's better to drive a few kilometers in the wrong direction, it might be your lucky shot!

>> We have an emergency number. This is featured on every stage briefing in the morning, but please save the number in your mobile phone and make sure you always have some battery left.

>> Always write down the license plate of your ride on your hitchhike control sheet before getting on board, or take a picture of it, take also the name and phone number of the driver! This immediately creates a sense of control.

>> For slightly less talented hitchhikers, a list of train and bus hours is provided every day, to get you to the arrival place. Those who are forced to use this public transport will of course get the last time of the day (= arrival will be set at 8 pm).

Returning from Barcelona?

Returning home from Barcelona is not included. We encourage everyone to hitchhike back :) Otherwise the airport is less than 2 miles away from the camping.

Join The Barcelona Express 2019

The Barcelona Express is sold-out. You can pregister already for 2019.