A Yorkshire based travel firm specialising in global adventure challenges is set to post record sales on the back of soaring demand from customers keen to explore bucket list destinations.
Rat Race was founded in York by Jim Mee in 2004 and has since hosted more than 500 海角视频 and international events in 20 countries. The company is now planned to double the number of the international events by the end of 2023 as it prepares to post turnover of £4m and profit of £300,000 profit for the year ended January 31 2022.
The group started with one event in Edinburgh, but has so far led 50 trips around the globe in 2022, including a journey across the Namib Desert in Namibia, a Trans Andean coast to coast cycling adventure from the Pacific to the Atlantic, a 100-mile journey across a frozen lake in Outer Mongolia and a Panama coast to coast challenge that is claimed to be tougher than the Marathon Des Sables.
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Following the opening of borders post-pandemic, the firm is seeing a rise in demand from everyone from first time explorers to seasoned adventures, leading to the firm selling new ‘Bucket List’ and ‘Test Pilot’ trips, which aim to take guests on never-been-done journeys to extreme places.
Mr Mee, who started out as an event professional with Red Bull, developed a love for the outdoors while living in Scotland. He took part in a series of expeditions around the world when he was 23, and hatched plans to launch Rat Race in 2003 on the side of a mountain in Peru.
He said: “I was climbing in Peru, where I was coming to the end of a long period of expeditions and was getting a bit tired of all the snow and ice. I decided I wanted to set up a business, initially so that I could fund more trips but ultimately, I wanted a fresh challenge. I took a notebook with me, which I still have, and in a tent on the mountain Alpamayo, in the Cordillera mountains of Peru, I drafted out a concept for an event called the ‘Rat Race Urban Adventure.’
“The idea was to present a bit of an ironic and quirky take on adventure - hence the name Rat Race - showing that you could have an adventure on your own doorstep, and that it’s possible for this to be accessible to anyone.
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“Fast forward to today and we have now expanded and pivoted our offering post Covid towards international and multi-day bucket list challenges allowing us to make peoples’ sense of adventure and wanderlust a reality following those dark times during lockdown, when no one could go anywhere or do anything.
“We are always seeking to innovate in the marketplace and never follow the crowd. No more-so is this true now of the new Bucket List, Test Pilot and other international formats we are operating. These are part expedition, part event, but totally unique and utterly Rat Race in the way we have formatted them and brought them to the market.
“When you go to places that are genuinely remote and off the beaten track, of which these become fewer and fewer as the world becomes more connected - this really does give rise that proposition of uncertain outcome. And for us, that is the definition of adventure.
“We want to share these trips with like-minded, regular folk. We are not professional explorers and we do not position ourselves as such. That is absolutely key to the Rat Race way. Extraordinary adventures for regular folks.”
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