Red Bull. Can you make it? 2018: how to travel without money?

Two weeks ago, 200 student teams from 60 countries embarked on the most unusual journey of their lives. In seven days, each team had to reach their destination, Amsterdam, from one of the starting cities – Madrid, Budapest, Manchester, Rome or Stockholm.

The guys had no cell phone service or money with them – those were the rules. Their only currency was Red Bull banks. With the help of their exchange they received everything they needed: tickets, food and even a night in a hotel. This year Russia was represented by five teams at once. We talked to Sergey Gravchenko, a member of the Siberian Team from Novosibirsk, and he revealed the most interesting details of the Eurotrip codenamed “Red Bull. Can you make it?”.

– How did you decide to make such a trip? Who was the initiator?

Sergey Gravchenko, captain of Siberian Team: I was the initiator. Two years ago I learned that there is such a project. But at that moment I was a freshman and, so to say, did not quite meet the requirements. So then I watched from the sidelines, admired, was happy for ours and for the fact that in principle there are such cool stories. And after two years I finally managed to break away and go into the unknown with my friends. I knew that I would definitely be able to negotiate with someone, I could survive without money and in unusual conditions for me, in general, I was ready morally! This all led to the fact that when I saw the announcement of a new recruitment at the end of last year, I realized that it was time. It was now or never. It was my only chance. The next thing to do was nothing more: assemble a team. I needed to find two friends who would be willing. Lera came to my mind first, because she speaks excellent English and is learning Italian. All that was left was to convince her and warn her that it would be a step out of her comfort zone. I managed to do it with a bit of luck. The third place was empty for a long time: the guys were afraid to participate. And on January 1, I realized that I had to act. As 12 o’clock struck, I went to social network and scrolled through the list of friends online. That’s how I found Eric. He didn’t even think for a minute, he just said: “Let’s go!” And here we are.

We are always waiting for something, but only now it occurred to me that it is possible to travel without having a lot of money.

– Did you have any doubts during the preparation?

– Lera is responsible for doubts in our team. She even agreed under the pretext of “we won’t pass anyway”, because there were too many applications. For some reason I was absolutely sure of the opposite at the time of preparation. I thought that there would not be many applications from Russia and we would definitely get one of the five places. Later it turned out that there were a lot of entries, so we had to try harder. So we had to go ahead and not think about what would happen. Doubts away, as they say.

– Was there any rough plan of action?

– Not really. We only knew that our Lera dreams to visit Italy, and we planned to build a route through this country. At first there was information that we would start in Budapest, but then we were moved to Rome. So Lerina’s dream was being realized and we were not chained to anything. There was no travel plan until just before the start. An hour and a half before the start, we opened the map and started thinking. We roughly looked at what to do in Europe, where to hitchhike – it turned out we were still wrong.

– Where did you live and sleep? Was it difficult to find places for the night?

– Living and sleeping was the most difficult issue in our team. We solved the problem as it came, that is, in the evening, when the management of the hotels left. But the staff usually said they couldn’t make that decision, and the bosses said no over the phone. The first night we were stuck at a gas station outside Rome: no one on the road would pick us up, and the hotels around us wouldn’t let us in. So we slept in sleeping bags at the gas station. We slept a few times at the train station, on park benches, in a bike parking lot near the checkpoint. The last night we spent illegally in a hostel. It was a joy.

– Did you hitchhike most of the time?

– No, absolutely not. The first time we traveled was really hitchhiking. But Italians don’t like it at all, and it’s forbidden to hitchhike on the autobahns. In Bolonia we asked people to buy us train tickets and gave them cans of Red Bull. Later in Verona, one team told us that we could negotiate with the controller and pass for a can. Why didn’t we think of that? So we drove from Verona to Munich, from Munich to Nuremberg, then to Cologne and to Aachen. Only then did we go back to hitchhiking. It turns out that most of the trip was trainstop. In total we would spend 772 euros on trains, because we got on express trains and once even in first class. I think that’s very steep.

– Is it difficult at all to negotiate with people to get a favor for banks? How do they react to it?

– No. Most of the time they didn’t even need the Red Bull, they took it as a souvenir. We love Germany now: we could do anything we wanted for a can. We even got haircuts at the barbershop.

– It’s fun for people to take part in such a project too.

– Yes, they really like it. It was important to us. When people find out that there is such a project, they are willing to help. Lera’s knowledge of Italian helped us a lot.

– Did you have to go hungry? Or did you always manage to find something?

– We never felt hungry. Maybe because we were always on the move and had no time to think about food. We ate in cafes, bistros… And one person even told us to choose whatever we wanted in the supermarket and paid for it. At that moment we were the happiest in the world(smiles).

– Is there such a minimum of things you need to take with you?

– It’s all relative. During the preparation I read that you should definitely take a sleeping bag, but a tent is hardly useful. Now I would still take a simple tent. Warm clothes and raincoats are necessary. Light snacks: bars and stew. You can take minimum clothes.

– Were there any disputes in the team? There must have been some difficulties.

– We realized that there will be moments of conflicts, from which you can not escape. We just have to endure it. We didn’t have any serious quarrels. Except that Lera often said that we couldn’t come to an agreement, but we did. But that’s okay.

– It’s a good thing. But still tired of each other?

– On edge. Although, when we had two free nights in Amsterdam, we went for a walk together. So I guess we weren’t tired.

– Have you made new acquaintances in other countries? Do you keep in touch now?

– Yes, absolutely. In Rome we met Russians. They wrote to us, asking if we had made it. We communicate with them now. We also made friends with other teams. “Red Bull. Can you make it?” – it’s not a rivalry, it’s a friendship. If we accidentally met another team, we would run up, hug and tell them everything. With the Brazilian girls we taught each other the language, sang songs, danced and even had a rap battle. Now we correspond and often comment on each other’s photos on social networks.

– Have you had any experience of traveling like this before?
– No, I haven’t even thought about trying something like that. We’re always waiting for something, but only now it occurred to me that it’s possible to travel without having tons of money.

Lifehacks:

Don’t hitchhike in Italy and Switzerland.
You don’t get punched in the nose for asking. Don’t be shy about asking and socializing.
Money is not the most important thing. Everything can be negotiated.
Don’t forget to take raincoats and sleeping bags. It’s really important.
Be resourceful and open to new places.