2016 MONGOL RALLY

The finish line of the 2016 Mongol Rally, north of Mongolia in Ulan Ude (Siberia), with our convoy: Team #WeLive, The 101 Damnations, So Good it Yurts, plus some other randos who hopped into the frame.

This was originally published on my portfolio site in 2016. I use it to stand out from the crowd, and to showcase my project management skills.

The Mongol Rally taught me in the best possible way that you can't go it alone, and that the best approach to problems is resilience and to remember to not take things personally. The hardest experiences can also give the best life lessons!

I was the team captain for a 5-woman team, Team #WeLive, and we drove 10,000 miles in the 2016 Mongol Rally in tiny, underpowered 1-liter-engine hatchbacks to raise money for charity and awareness for women's rights.

My responsibilities were finances and logistics, and I spent countless hours over the course of a year researching and planning the route, securing visas for both USA and UK citizens, and forecasting the financial needs for the 10,000-mile overland journey. With the many challenges of starting the event in the UK, I relocated to Scotland for three months prior to the rally to finish the planning process and to purchase and prep two cars.

I used all of my project management and personnel management skills to coordinate a team of 5 women who, for most of the planning, were scattered across 13 time zones, with me in Scotland, and the other women in Southern California, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Shanghai, China. We did weekly Skype calls to build team bonds, and also used Google Drive and many spreadsheets to communicate details. You should see our WhatsApp chat--it's a serial comedy in itself.

We successfully raised over $14,000 to fund the trip. Tabitha and Alice did a fine job getting some killer sponsors, including Waccao Minipresso, Tentsile treehouse tents, Relief Bed, RavPower, and more. In addition to donating money to the official charity Cool Earth, we are also putting together a publication detailing the lives of women we met along the route to highlight women's rights across Europe and Asia.

On the road, I continued my role as team captain, utilizing my professional management training and also my experience as a tour manager to keep the team moving forward through some very tough times. The cars broke down and we'd need to get them fixed without knowing the local language. We navigated 14 international borders and avoided countless attempts to collect bribes. It was about resilience and intelligent improvisation, and we were usually operating under the stress of driving 12 hour days.

It's one of the hardest things I've done in my life and one of the most worthwhile. It gave me a whole new perspective on what constitutes a problem (most things actually don't!), and taught me that cool levelheadedness and not taking things personally is usually the best way to go. I look forward to applying these skills in an office setting!

Team #WeLive: The Route

Our 10,000 mile route. Many people ask why we did the Russian detour that is basically the equivalent of driving from Texas to North Dakota to get to Boston... it's because a) you can't get from Mongolia to Kazakhstan, b) China was EXPENSIVE to get visas and carnets for, and c) we wanted to skip not only the atrocious moonscape roads of NE Kazakhstan but also to avoid one of the worst radioactive zones on the planet, Semey, where the Soviet Union tested their nuclear weapons at ground level. Yikes.

Team #WeLive: The Ladies

This is our 5-woman team, from left: Alice, professional travel blogger; Bri, sociolinguist; Megan, photographer and videographer; me, Team Captain; Tabitha, team editor and social media wrangler.

Team #WeLive: The Cars

The whole point is to drive ridiculous underpowered, very lightly modified unsuitable cars across 10,000 of stupidly rugged terrain. I did the mods myself: steel rims, 9-ply van tires that can take running over a curb at 35 mph (we had ZERO flat tires on both cars), roof racks and floodlights, 7mm steel bash plates under the engine, extra air intake, and sheet insulation between the engine and our feet because we had no a/c.

On the left: Fordnando, a 1.2-liter 2001 Ford Fiesta

On the right: Babs, a 1-liter 2001 Toyota Yaris.

Team #WeLive: The Spreadsheet

This was my nefarious master plan. It had every date, location, mileage and time to next stop, the fuel prices automatically calculated off a world fuel prices database, accommodations, people we were planning to interview, borders, and more.

This was my financial tracking system. All the subtabs totaled up via formulas to the master sheet. I correctly calculated our costs within a few hundred dollars. I <3 spreadsheets!!!

The Door To Hell, Turkmenistan

This is a natural gas field in Derweze, Turkmenistan, that collapsed into an underground cavern in 1971, becoming a natural gas crater, and has been on fire ever since. It's a staple stopover on the Mongol Rally route, and we were there with about a dozen teams.

Fixing Fordnando’s suspension, Bukhara, Uzbekistan

So in Uzbekistan they only have six kinds of cars: three kinds of Chevy (small, medium, and large), the awesome Damas microbus (I got a little obsessed with those... they go offroad!), the Lada sedan, and the Lada 4x4. So if you have a Ford, they jam in whatever part is the closest fit. Here they are forcing Chevy Spark shock absorbers into my Fiesta. The threads were about half the depth as the stock threads, so a lot of compression (read: body weight) was needed to get enough clearance for the nut. It's best not to dwell on the details of repair jobs here, because... yikes.

Mongol Rally Auto Service, Khovd, Mongolia

This is an enterprising business in Mongolia that knows a whole bunch of freaks in hatchbacks are going to blaze through every August with beat-down little cars. Mongolia is mostly off-road driving, so by the end of the rally they are literally held together with baling wire and epoxy. And incorrect parts. We stopped here with our convoy as half the cars needed fixing... which is literally an everyday reality in Mongolia.

Roadside Directions, somewhere in Kazakhstan

The Mongol Rally is ALL about the people. You can't do it alone, and teamwork is the most enjoyable way to get hard things done anyway. This is Team #WeLive with our convoy that also included Team Keystone (Pittsburgh, PA) and 101-Damn-Nations (Essex, UK). We were joined shortly after this by So Good It Yurts (Kent, UK). I LOVE THESE PEOPLE.

The 863-Mile Tow… with a tent strap

Judith, the tiny Vauxhall Corsa belonging to So Good It Yurts, cracked her sump many times on the Mongol Rally. By the time they entered Mongolia her sump was held together with cold weld and Gorilla tape.

On day 2 in the outback roadless wilds of Western Mongolia, she cracked it again. My car, Fordnando, towed her 63 offroad miles into town, where it was repaired. Fornando cracked his sump on day 4, necessitating a 50-odd-mile dirt-track tow by me with Keystone's underpowered Atos, and underwent subsequent repairs.

On day 6, Judith fatally cracked her sump and Fordnando towed her and the boys 800 miles to the finish line. All of this was done on Tentsile Stingray treehouse tent straps. Major props to them, our sponsor. This is the condition of the straps at the finish line. STRONG.

Team #WeLive: THE FINISH LINE

The finish line is just north of Mongolia, in Ulan Ude, Siberia, close to Lake Baikal. WE DID IT!

(in all honesty, we found out later that there was a massive betting pool amongst the other 300-odd teams against us making it to the finish line in one piece. But I got us there. We might not be talking, but we did it.