In the Mongol Rally there is no set course—you choose whatever path you like. This leads to some teams choosing the southern route (Turkey, Armenia, Iran, etc.), and other teams choosing the northern route (Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan). This brings a whole new twist to the race. In a way picking the course is like being dealt a hand in texas hold em poker, you don’t know what you’re going to get but you have to keep on playing. I have chosen the northern route for our team. As much as I’d love to visit Iran (I actually would…), we’re going to go the ‘easier’ route, which just so happens to also be the cooler route (climate-wise).
I’ve gone ahead and loosely planned our route from Hyde Park in London all the way to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. It’s definitely not exact, and there will be changes, but this is what I’ve been thinking of doing. As of right now it looks like we’re going to be traveling through fourteen (or more) countries! If possible I’d like to visit Turkmenistan or Tajikistan…or both. But we’ll have to see how we’re doing, how our car is doing, and how much time we have at that point.
