Catch up with Race Across the World’s 2024 winners

On 29^th May 2024, Race Across the World fans tuned in to BBC One to watch the final four teams push through the final leg of their journey in a bid to be crowned 2024’s winners. In a thrillingly tight finish, best friends Alfie, 20, and Owen, 21, sped to the finish line on the Indonesian island of Lombok to take the title of 2024 Race Across the World champions.

Here, we chat to the winning duo about their most challenging moments, what the weeks-long adventure taught them and what future travel plans they have in store.

Congratulations on your win! As the youngest team in the race, had you had the chance to do much travelling before?

Alfie: Yeah, we’d travelled together quite a few times and to be honest, we were planning on going away during the race period anyway, so it was perfect for us to be able to do it. I’ve been to 47 countries and I think Owen’s been to not many far off that, so we’d already seen quite a lot of the world both together and separately. We were quite well prepared for our age.

What did you do to prepare specifically for the race?

Owen: Absolutely nothing at all. Literally nothing. We packed the night before! We bought some clothes that we thought we’d need but you can’t really prepare for it to be honest; you’ve kind of just got to throw yourself into it.

Having grown up in an era of Google Maps, what was it like having to use a hard copy and travel without digital comforts?

Owen: Well, we lost the map, so we didn’t have much opportunity to get used to using it. You get used to it pretty quickly; you don’t have a phone and that’s it. There’s no way around that, so you’ve just got to make do with what you’ve got.

Passing across eight borders and crossing six seas, this race across Asia seemed like one of the most challenging yet! What was the most challenging part for you?

Alfie: I think it was probably just the lack of sleep and food. The real sucker punch was waking up every day not knowing where you were going to sleep or how much food you were going to be able to eat while sticking to budget. That was the number one problem for both of us and it just never went away.

Is there anywhere you wish you could have stayed longer and why?

Alfie: If we could’ve stayed longer in Thailand, we definitely would’ve done. Particularly during our second leg in Thailand when we were headed through Krabi and all of those amazing coastal places nearby, we would’ve loved to have stayed but we were very much in race mode at that point, so we were looking to just race through wherever we could.

Asia is known for its flavourful and distinctive cuisine! I know you didn’t have much budget to spend, but did you have any food highlights? Like the freebie Kobe beef?

Alfie: We only really enjoyed the cuisine at checkpoint. We had a couple of cracking Thai green curries and other local dishes at each checkpoint. Throughout each leg, it was so difficult because we were so tight and strict on budget.

Owen: We lived mostly off supermarket foods, so really nothing special unfortunately.

Alfie: Thailand’s 7-Eleven toasties definitely deserve a massive shout-out.

Owen: And their brownies! The Kobe beef in Japan was very good too but it’s very expensive, so I wouldn’t rush back there for that.

We’re big fans of overland travel at Wanderlust, as you get to slow down and see a destination. Although often in race mode, did you get to enjoy any of the train, bus or boat journeys?

Alfie: The boat journeys were always quite enjoyable; the seas were very calm and we got to enjoy some great views in general. There was one particularly memorable train journey in Thailand that we loved. We were right in the middle between Chiang Mai and Bangkok and that was a pretty surreal experience. The views on that train journey were awesome.

The race seemed like a huge learning experience for everyone who took part. What did the trip teach you about yourselves?

Owen: For me, it made me realise how patient and resilient I can be. It sounds cliché but it taught me that if you put your mind to it, you can do anything. You just need to believe in yourself a bit more, which is something I’d never really done before. I really proved to myself that I can do something if I give it a good go.

Alfie: For me, the experience taught me to learn to speak to people and be a bit more open. It taught me to believe in the power of kindness and that’s definitely the most powerful lesson I took from the experience.

What’s next? Have you planned to travel anywhere else either together or separately?

Owen: I’m going back to Asia in September to do everything that we didn’t get to do during the race. I’d like to spend longer in places like Thailand and Vietnam with my own money. That way I won’t have to rush around and I’ll get to enjoy those places without the stresses of the race! I’m looking forward to going back and enjoying it properly.

Alfie: I’m heading back to Kuala Lumpur to do some charity work with my business. We’re taking lots of football kit out to deliver to some of the poorer communities that we met while we were in Kuala Lumpur during the race. I see it as my opportunity to give back after the race gave me so much.