A British travel company is sponsoring a race from London to Istanbul, the route of the original Orient Express, with an unusual condition: racers must travel only by public transport or on foot.
Sponsored by Lupine Travel, whose normal business is sending travelers to out-of-the-way destinations such as Yemen and North Korea, the race has prizes for the fastest trip (expected to be about five days) as well as ones for the lowest trip cost and for most countries visited.
The 'grand prize' for the first to reach Istanbul is £2000 worth of travel by Lupine. There's a £99 entry fee, and contestants will have to pay their own expenses along the way including trains, buses, etc. Hitchhiking, flying and taxis are banned, except for taxis from station to hotel and back.
Contestants will be kept on the straight and narrow, so to speak, by being required to check in at specified checkpoints along the way. The first is in Paris, but the remainder will be revealed one at a time. The secrecy is to thwart pre-planning; racers will have to figure out at each checkpoint how to get to the next.
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