We’ve re-invented the road trip, dialled up the stupid and created a giant overland arena of old-school mayhem.

The Poles of Inconvenience: Europe Edition kicks off on 19th July 2025. Sign up is open and you can bring any vehicle you want. The launch is a live broadcast so you can start from anywhere. You’ll finish on 14th August at a festival-style party in a former missile silo just outside Prague. In between is three weeks of getting lost and stuck as you try and reach as many poles as possible. We’ll be tracking you on the live map and dishing out daily updates.

Each pole is a carefully crafted nugget of splendid inconvenience. They could be anywhere from the Arctic circle in Norway to a lonely Western Saharan ghost town. Or way over to the east on a Turkish mountain pass cliff-dangler.

You’ll get points for every pole you reach. The more splendidly inconvenient the pole, the more points you’ll rack up. There’s a bunch of prizes up for grabs but the team who crosses the line at the top of the leaderboard will be crowned Champion of Inconvenience 2025.

“Bollocks to the rules – let’s tell everyone to steal their neighbours Ford Fiesta. Or borrow a donkey from a farmer… Or bring whatever’s on their drive.”

That was founder Mr. Tom’s entire contribution to our vehicle rules review meeting. So that was that. We finished our biscuits and chucked the rules in the bin… You can use any vehicle you want.

We recommend aiming for the least suitable chariot you can get your hands on. A Reliant Robin, Classic Mini, 50cc Vespa or sub 1 litre Nissan Micra may be the gold standard, but your Aunt’s 1.5 litre Toyota Corolla is still a worthy choice – it’ll definitely get stuck when you drive across a ginormous Tunisian salt flat.

You’ll also get bonus points if your car is tiny, ancient or likely to break down 15 minutes after you set off (real points that will shoot you up the leaderboard and give you a head start on winning a prize).

You can bring an expedition ready 4×4 with a built-in kitchen sink if you really have to. But be prepared for ‘we’re not angry just disappointed’ side-eye from your fellow teams, and maybe even points penalties.

Poles of Inconvenience are strategically placed nuggets of chaos. We’ve picked the most splendidly inconvenient locations from Norway to Western Sahara and across to Turkey. Together they make up a carefully crafted network designed to slap you about the chops with old school adventure.

Imagine being hurled spicy bits first towards the mincer of life. Jumping into whatever unsuitable vehicle you can lay your hands on and heading off to the middle of nowhere, in a country you’ve never been to before, to find a spot on a map that is utterly ridiculous.

You get points for each pole – the hard the pole, the higher the points. In 2025 we’re brining back the best poles from the past couple of years including: Saharan sand dunes in Morocco; Turkey’s ‘most dangerous road’ D915; a massive car-swallowing salt flat in Tunisia; the road of doom in Albania and the UK’s toughest off road track which is often mostly underwater.

There’ll also be Golden Poles – randomly announced during the adventure and worth shedloads more points. Because they’ll be very, very inconvenient, and therefore excellent.