Lupine Racing FAQ's.

One of the most fantastic elements of Lupine Racing is the community that's built up around our events.

You'll be able to meet your fellow racers at our start event and the awards party, and on longer events we also schedule a mid-race social called The Layover, which many people attend.

You can also grab optional wristbands at the race start, or order some of our other merch, so people can spot you along the way. The mid-race chat group is always full of people finding out if anyone else is on their train or bus, or in the same city for the night, and meeting up along the way. We've even had a couple of occasions where a long-distance bus has been virtually taken over by racers as the pack comes together towards the end of the route.

You can also get to know people ahead of time and ask questions in our public Discord server.

Yes! During each race we add a link to the top of our homepage linking to our live map for the event. They can also follow our social media accounts to see photos and updates on progression.

The checkpoints will all be within built-up areas. Don't worry, we're not sending anyone off into the forest or up mountains.

Our checkpoints are generally in flat, central and accessible areas. We try to avoid hills, hikes or anything that would make a checkpoint unnecessarily physical, and the evidence needed to validate a checkpoint doesn't involve significant walking, stairs, steep or uneven terrain, or carrying luggage over substantial distances.

We also allow taxis and other private transport within most of the city areas you'll encounter, partly to help with accessibility. You can see these Private Transport Areas, and the rules that apply to them, in the event resources sent out for each race, and in our rules.

We're still somewhat at the mercy of Europe's public transport infrastructure, so we can't guarantee that every station or connection will be step-free, but we do our best to mitigate this wherever we can.

On our week-long events you'll typically need to hit 5-6 checkpoints, but there's optionality in the route to give you some freedom in where you go. On our Bounce events and Metro Mayhem events, there are usually up to 16 checkpoints, but you don't need to visit them all, the goal is to visit as many as you can.

It's entirely up to you. Our 6-7 day events are designed so the fastest racers could realistically finish the whole route in around 2-2.5 days if they went non-stop, but that's very much the exception rather than the rule.

About 75-80% of entrants choose to take things at a more relaxed pace, using as much of the time allowed as they want to explore the checkpoint towns, enjoy a proper night's sleep, and make the most of the adventure rather than racing flat out to the finish.

On our shorter challenges, the minimum requirement is designed so you can complete the race with overnight accommodation each night. If overnight racing isn't for you, take a look at our Wander or Metro Mayhem challenges instead. On our Bounce events, we also build in optional rest stops that earn you points, so you can get proper rest along the way.

If you're thinking to pre-book accommodation at the end of a longer race, one tip from past racers is to make multiple single-night, refundable bookings rather than one long reservation. That way, if your plans change or you end up moving slower than expected, you can simply cancel a night or two rather than losing the whole booking.

All checkpoints are in your race pack from the start, so you can plan and pre-book your whole journey in advance, and it also means you can save money on bookings towards the end of the race.

We may trial incremental checkpoints on some special events in the future, but we don't think this format is for everyone, so it's unlikely to make it onto our larger events.

No. Checkpoints are nearly always self-invigilated and open for the full race, so you can visit them at any time rather than working to a fixed deadline for each one. The main deadlines that matter are the start, when you need to be present, and the finish, which needs to be reached before the event cut-off.

On the final day of our events we'll have our awards party. Each day of the event there will be a time in the afternoon where you can come and meet the finish team and collect your medal early, and we'll also have a social each night for early arrivals.

If you arrive outside these windows, you can self-invigilate at the finish marker with our app, then meet the team later that day, or at the big finish and awards at the end of the race!

We update our rules for each event. At the core of it, these are land/sea-based public transport races.

The short version: outside our Private Transport Zones you travel by public transport, such as trains, coaches, buses, ferries, metros and trams. Taxis and other private transport are allowed within the Private Transport Zones. You need to visit every checkpoint in order and collect the evidence requested in your race pack.

You can read the full rules for every detail, including evidence and invigilation, team rules and penalties.

It depends on the duration of the event. Many racers report they got a lot of benefit out of the pass, typically using up 3-5 days of travel on the pass and then supplementing this with some coaches and other transport.

Our shorter Bounce events are typically designed to make good use of a single country or regional Interrail pass, such as the 3-day Benelux pass or the 4-day Italy pass.

On longer events, Interrail can be more useful in western and central Europe than somewhere like the Balkans and Serbia, where buses often become faster, so it really depends on your strategy and the race route.

Another factor is whether you plan to use the pass to travel home overland afterwards, or whether it's worth getting one of the longer, better value passes to cover multiple trips you've got planned, including future editions of our events.

If the finish of the race is outside of the Interrail area, it may be worth getting a slightly shorter pass rather than one that covers the whole race route. But this is up to you.

Most racers opt to travel quite light, and many benefit from using a backpack over any type of wheelie suitcase. Navigating European cities quickly with wheeled luggage can be quite exhausting.

We deliberately design our races to be as accessible as possible, and we try not to make physical fitness a major advantage. You don't need to be an elite athlete, an expert traveller or a risk taker. We've had entrants with a broad range of ages and mobility complete our events. These are not intended to be physical challenges.

There's also no need to travel at the pace of the front of the field. Our week-long events are designed so the fastest racers can potentially finish in around 2-2.5 days, while typically 75-80% of entrants take considerably longer and build in rest, overnight stops and leisure time along the way.

If you decide to take part but find that completing the full race isn't realistic for you, you're welcome to take part on a more relaxed, non-competitive basis, travelling towards the finish at your own pace and skipping checkpoints if necessary. You wouldn't qualify as an official finisher without completing the required route, but you'd still very much be part of the event and the community, including any closing celebrations.

We recognise that different participants may have different needs, so we have a range of safety and support measures in place throughout the event. If you have any specific accessibility questions ahead of an event, just get in touch and we'll do our best to help.

Race Control monitors the event throughout, and your GPS tracking keeps us aware of where everyone is on the route. If you run into a problem, whether that's missing a connection, feeling unwell, or something more serious, you can contact Race Control directly and we'll help you work out the best way forward.

If personal safety ever forces you off the planned route, our rules simply ask you to record your position and resume from that same point once it's safe to do so. Nobody is penalised for prioritising their safety, and our team is reachable throughout the event for anything from a quick question to a genuine emergency.

Plenty of entrants take part solo, and it's one of the most common ways people race with us. You don't need to speak the local languages either. Most racers get by with a translation app, a bit of patience and the same public transport information that's available to everyone.

If you'd rather not go in completely cold, our Discord community is full of past and current entrants happy to share tips, and it's a good place to meet people before the start line too.

Yes, you can, however, you must still pay the entry fee per racer. In effect, teams in our events are a collection of individuals racing under one informal banner. Each team member must complete the challenge and follow all the rules as an individual. A team may benefit from collective research, but a solo traveller may be able to move quicker.

Teams are allowed to split up if they wish. Each entrant's time will be logged individually in our results.

If, for example, a team of two crossed the line together, they would be eligible for Joint 1st and would qualify for both the 1st and 2nd place prizes.

If you're familiar with professional bike racing, the concept is similar to that.

For our 2025 races, we have a lower age limit of 11. All under 18s must be travelling with a parent or guardian.

We've been blown away over the last couple of years by the number of families entering the event, and it's been amazing to hear the stories of their adventures on the finish line.

This varies based on the event and will be detailed on the event page.

Most of our events throughout the year are in the 50-100 range.

We also have one big summer headline event each year, which takes the form of multiple races feeding into one big finish. We aim for a maximum of 150 entrants on each race, with 200 as an absolute hard upper limit.

We also run one-day Metro Mayhem events throughout the year, which are city-based. These are typically limited to 30 entrants for one-day events, except for special 2-day versions, or versions acting as a Christmas party, Summer party, or a warm-up event for a larger race, in which case capacity is increased to 50-100.

The fee covers all the various staging costs of the event. Things such as the design and planning work, prize pots, medals, race pack design and production, checkpoint costs, venues and more. It also includes our international and local staff support during the event, and the technology that runs alongside the race, plus things like the awards party.

For each race we also detail a full "Includes" list on the event page summarising what is covered.

As a note, we do not utilise volunteer labour for our events. All event staff are paid.

For our 2023 race from London to Istanbul, we found that most people spent around £400-500 on transport, with some going as low as £200 by using mostly coaches and buses. Accommodation cost is up to you. Our most frugal entrants in 2023 opted for overnight transport to save on accommodation.

In our 2024 race to Albania, entrant feedback was an average spend of £450-525, with the lowest at £270.

In our 2026 Slovenia race, the lowest transport spend, and winner of the Savvy Award, came out at just over £200, with accommodation on top of this.

No, you can spend what you like, but the person with the lowest transport spend will win a prize: the Savvy Award!

Yes and no. Some people are here for the public transport challenge, but many are here for the mystery adventure, to get inspiration from our often quirky and lesser-known gem checkpoint towns, and to make friends.

We've had many people feed back that the events have helped them gain confidence, and given them quality time with their children, including teenagers, on an event that gets everyone stuck in together as equals.

Very! In our 2023 London-Istanbul race, the fastest finishers completed the route in just under 2 days, 9 hours. They travelled non-stop, finishing up with a foot race across the city and reaching the end just seconds apart.

That said, we see around 20-25% of the field seriously target one of the various competitions on offer, putting in plenty of pre-race research and racing non-stop during the event. The other 75% or so are here for the wonderful community that's grown up around our events, taking the race on as more of a mystery adventure and aiming simply to cross the line before the deadline.