Travel Trade Crusade 2019

As I walked into the car park in Reims dressed as a pirate and walked past an inflated panda followed by someone who would not look out of place in a remake of deliverance I did question whether I'd not made another serious error of judgement? But here we were in Champagne country getting ready for the travel trade crusade. After enjoying the benefits of this region the day before I'm not sure I was truly ready for 4 days of intense driving but I was here and our team of four were ready to go.

A few months previously I'd travelled to Mexico with a colleague on a familiarisation trip (see previous blog) and had found out that we both share a love of the random experience of travel, and so a few weeks after this when she won a place and therefore a car on the travel trade crusade 2019, she couldn't think of anyone else who could share this experience with than yours truly..... silly her eh! (and two other foolish Travel Counsellors).

So what is the travel trade crusade, well basically its about 20 teams who all have their own vehicle (bought for less than £450 ideally) which they can decorate however they want. We had cars that resembled a dog, cars that resembled a panda and our delightful vehicle which resembled a palm tree, as we were being ably assisted financially by a Caribbean hotel chain, hence the pirate outfits and numerous coconuts we seemingly had to carry with us on this adventure.

The plan for the journey of four days is to set out on day 1 where you find out where you are driving to that day, with various "tasks" on the way. The route is planned to go via some amazingly scenic outposts and to view some parts of Europe which you would not normally visit. So day 1 in France was to Loonyville (possibly spelt differently but sounded close enough) where one of the team had to ride me like a horse...to mimic a famous statue....then through the black forest and a stop on Konstanz, and for me a dip/jump into Lake Constance to try and win some points. The points get totted up and you can win spot prizes for your charity and fundamentally overall points winner wins a wad of cash for your charity, so the aim is fun and having a laugh while the true target is to help your charity out big time.

After Konstanz in southern Germany we drove up via Hockenheim race circuit where we drive two laps of the famous circuit at about 15 mph....roughly 1mph above top speed. Then onto Bernkastel-Kues on the Mosel river and wine country. Every evening we would socialise with the other teams and gather together our experiences of the day, find out who had had technical difficulties....usually everyone.....found out what hilarious things had occurred in the drive to give impetus for some "videos" for more points and finally just get to hear lots of blackmail material for future events when not dressed as a pirate back in the UK.

After a few too many shandies the night before and possibly some Blue Nun....when in Rome and all that.....we leisurely left after midday and sauntered our way over the border into Belgium, wandered around Liege picked up some chocolate and tried to board a ferry (pirate style of course) for the charity you understand, before our last stop of the crusade in Rotterdam, Holland.

Here we boarded our last vessel and nothing to do with pirates here, the last night was on board the SS Rottedam permanently docked in the harbour and changed into a hotel. We checked in and got our glad rags on for the finale and champagne reception. A great night was had by all and we won £100 for our charity for me jumping into the lake.....needs must and overall we almost raised £2k before tax based increases on peoples generous donations, so we were really proud.

But fundamentally we got to see loads of interesting and random places through France, Germany, Belgium and Holland. And for its inspired me to crack on and get my two young daughters travelling and exploring for themselves. I especially enjoyed not knowing where we would be each day, so for our next family holiday I'm instigating the "who knows where rule". Basically we have three envelopes with three destinations in them that can be got to from the current destination, so for example if we fly into Paris, maybe Marseille, Frankfurt and Lyon? Then we pick one of those and get on a train and off we pop, then after a few days exploring somewhere new, we do the same again. Its all for fun but I really want my daughters to have that sense of the unknown and to want to explore and find out about places and just wander about seeing what they find. So that's my plan and the travel trade crusade has really inspired me to focus on this as a travel style, so if you want to do something similar or want to plan a really random self drive around Europe then get in touch and I'll happily help or if you want to sponsor me for the next one in 2021, I'll be in touch!!

Happy travelling

Dave