My Next Crazy Adventure: I’m Doing The Mongol Rally!!

As if the title wasn’t enough of a spoiler, I want to share some big news…

I’M DOING THE MONGOL RALLY!!

I’m super excited and freaked out about this adventure.  For those of you who don’t know what the Mongol Rally is; imagine driving 1/3 of the way around the world through the toughest terrain on earth on a car that is barely made to take your grandma from home to the supermarket.

The Mongol Rally is an unsupported and un-routed driving adventure from London, England to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Starting July 13th, our team, The Drama of Llama, will be crossing nearly 10,000 miles of unforgiving deserts, perilous mountain ranges and non-existent roads, in a 2005 Hyundai Getz.  As you can imagine, this car is ill suited for this type of mission.  In the end, our car will be donated to a charity in Mongolia that will give good use to it.

Our rally car!

But I’m not doing this crazy stunt alone!  My international partners in crime are Livia Aguiar, a journalist and travel blogger at Eusouatoa (a travel blog in Portuguese); Vitalli Lunkevich, a final year Business and Management student; and the misadventurous Stephen Schreck of A Backpacker’s Tale.

But, this rally is not just an adventure; it is a way to help those in need while having an adventure.

We, as one of the hundreds of teams driving in the Mongol Rally, will also raise money to benefit two charities: The official Mongol Rally charity, Cool Earth, and our chosen charity, Set Her Free.

Why have we chosen Set Her Free?

Set Her Free, is a non-profit organization that is working to restore the lives of young girls formerly enslaved by the sex trades—the harshest form of child labor in Uganda.

Set Her Free provides not only food and shelter, but also formal education, technical training, counseling, medical care, and much more – currently to 120 young women. The cost to benefit each girl for a year calculates to 2,272,000 UGX or $909 (inclusive of food and education).

In addition to the great work they do, I have some sort of personal connection with them.  Remember when I reached Uganda by mistake and was rescued by a stranger?  Yup, that was Robinah, the founder and woman behind Set Her Free.  Robinah extended me a helping hand when I was in need and lost in a country I didn’t know, now I extend mine to help back.

Alright, so the big news is out!  Now we need your help!

An adventure like this doesn’t come in lightly to our pockets.  We need to raise about $13,000 for the team and we have a goal of raising $5000 to be split between our charities – but of course, we’d like to raise for charity as much as possible.

Here’s how you can get involved and help:

You can donate a liter of petrol today to help us reach Mongolia to donate our car!

And, you can donate to our charity fund to help Cool Earth and Set Her Free.

And… Would you like to sponsor us?!  We are accepting sponsors to help up reach our goal and at the same time we provide a valuable service for them.  Check out our sponsorship page on the Drama of Llama site, or download the Media Kit here.

Any help that could come to our team will be greatly appreciated.

This will be a great adventure, and the most interesting thing about the Mongol Rally is that anything can happen in that span of 10,000 miles!

Have ideas for a route from London to Ulaanbaatar?  Give us your suggestions and we might incorporate them in our route!