‘The border guard declared our passports as fake – he said he’d never heard of Jersey’

Jersey businessman Dave Chalk is hooked on a fun and challenging type of journey, one that is similar to the Race Around the World TV format, and one that has led to him launching a fundraising challenge, the JET Jaunt, in aid of Jersey Employment Trust, for which Dave is a trustee. He spoke to CAROLINE SPENCER and TOM OGG about his love for overseas adventure

FOR most people, a typical trip abroad will entail a packed suitcase, a good book and a week or two of cocktails, seafood and sunbathing.
Not so Dave Chalk. The Jersey businessman and Jersey Employment Trust trustee has in recent years taken to embarking upon globe-trotting challenges, competing against other thrill-seeking travellers in a race to see which of them can visit the highest number of countries and/or cross the finish line in the quickest time. It is a format that will be familiar to fans of the popular TV series Race Across the World.
“It all started in 2023,” says Dave, chatting in the JET offices earlier this week.
“I’d wanted to go to Chernobyl in Ukraine and so I started doing some research into travel companies which ran tours there, and it was then that I came across Lupine Travel.
“I started following them on social media and up popped the first Lupine Racing event. It was a race from London to Istanbul. Well, I’d always wanted to go to Istanbul and it seemed like a fun thing to do, and so I signed up.
“Three races later and it’s fair to say I’m now hooked.”
Dave doesn’t always travel alone, however, and he was joined for the London to Istanbul race by his son, Viktor, who was then aged 11.
“For the first race we didn’t really know what to expect, nor how long it would take us to get there,” says Dave. “We just treated it as a fun type of holiday rather than a race – basically, it was our first backpacking holiday. For example, we stayed in hotels every night and then travelled during the day. But then on the third day we heard that someone had already finished the race – and there we were sitting in Belgrade having our breakfast. We asked ourselves: ‘Okay, how can we do this better?’.”
Out of the 150 people taking part in the London to Istanbul challenge, Dave and Viktor finished in the top 20, not bad for two debut racers. Yet the pair were determined to raise their game.
“Ever since then, we have been aiming to get into the top ten,” says Dave. “From then on, it wasn’t a holiday anymore but rather a competitive race, and one which needed to be won – or at least one where we needed to finish in the top ten.
“It doesn’t need explaining why an 11-year-old boy wants to win a race, does it? It’s just natural for him to want to win.”
Asked what he enjoys most about the challenges, Dave laughs and says: “Hmm, it’s quite hard to explain why I like standing in bus stops at three o’clock in the morning, or spending three days on trains and overnight buses. However, what we find is that the planning element of the race really appeals: putting yourself in random cities and towns, with languages you don’t speak, and currency you don’t have. It puts you outside of your comfort zone.
“It’s also a great way to see countries which you would never otherwise have visited, and to try new local foods that you might not otherwise have eaten, and to just experience life outside of the day-to-day norm.
“In addition, although the race is done on your own or in a team, there is always a community of racers taking part. Bumping into people who you barely know at transport hubs brings great relief but also abject frustration – mainly because either they’ve caught up with you or you’ve caught up with them. When we’re all on trains and buses together, there is real camaraderie – until, that is, someone stands up and gets off unexpectedly, and then everyone spends the next hour trying to figure out what route that person is taking or if an important connection has been missed.
“At the same time, we all have a rough idea of where people are in relation to our own location, as all racers are tracked throughout, mainly so that it is clear that they have reached all of the checkpoints and that they have done so in the right order.”
Thus far, the highlight for Viktor has been winning the U18 (under 18’s) title from London to Istanbul and creating the name for the trophy – a name which, unfortunately, he has since forgotten.
The lowlight? When “Katey from Sheffield” beat him to the trophy the following year (“He is determined this year to get the trophy back again”).
“For me, the real highlight is seeing the experiences Viktor gets from the race and seeing him enjoying the sense of community around it,” says Dave. “How many early teens can say they’ve argued with Turkish border guards about Jersey’s existence? Or raced across Tirana with a taxi driver who was trying to get us to the finish line before Katey? Or got lost on a Flixbus around Brussels? Or won an international race and then been in national newspapers on the back of it?
“And I also enjoy seeing how Viktor interacts with the other racers,” he continues. “He is usually the first to offer a game of Uno, constantly asking them about the routes they’ve taken, and then he spends the rest of the year recounting all the experiences again in the build-up to the next race.
“I always say to him now, whenever he comes up against something challenging in life, to remember some of the situations we’ve been in while travelling and how we got through them.”
After the first Lupine Racing race to Istanbul (checkpoints: Paris, Munich, Belgrade, Ploviv, Istanbul), the next race was from London to Tirana, with the checkpoints in this instance being Bruges, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Rimini and Tirana. Once again both Dave and Viktor took part – with surprising results.
“Viktor came 13th and I came 15th,” says Dave. “We were in a taxi with another dad and child, and me and the other dad decided to let the kids cross the finish line first.
“As with the race to Istanbul, there were about 150 people taking part, with about 30 or 40 serious racers, and with the other 100-odd people taking a more leisurely approach. As long as you get to the finishing line on time then you’ve completed the race. The winners usually finish around three days in, but there are actually two races taking place simultaneously: ‘the quickest’ and ‘the most countries’, with competitors in the latter taking the full seven days and usually managing to visit up to 25 countries in that time. I don’t really fancy seven nights on overnight buses and trains. Even for me that’s a bit too much.”
This year saw Dave travelling to Marrakech, only this time minus Viktor, who was too busy with school exams to take part.
“It was kind of strange not having him there, but I ended up finishing seventh, not that I’m reading anything into that at all, which I have to say just in case Viktor reads this,” he says with a laugh. “The format for the Marrakech race was slightly different to previous ones, as there were three separate routes to choose from.”
The routes in question were as follows: Paris – Island Hopper, via Toulon/Palma de Mallorca; Pilgrims Progress, via St Jean-Pied-de-Port/Santiago de Compostela; and the Mountain Goat via Chamonix/Andorra. Dave opted for the Mountain Goat.
“We converged in Valencia, down to Tangier and then onto Marrakech,” he says. “As with other races, there is a key moment which always determines which ‘group’ you end up in. In this race, an hour-delayed bus out of Andorra at 10pm made us miss our connecting bus from Barcelona to Valencia and subsequently gave the Island Hoppers a three-hour advantage. We just couldn’t catch up, even with three of them being disqualified for not completing the Tangier checkpoint properly.”
Which, then, does Dave consider most important: the challenge, the winning or the taking part?
“Well, I haven’t won yet so I don’t know that feeling – although Viktor has. It’s all of them really. I’m always trying to be higher placed but, given the amount of connections which need making, it only takes one connection to go wrong to determine the end results. I think it’s really helped me to cope with other situations in life. Although it’s devastating when you miss a connection, especially in the middle of the night, there’s always another one a few hours later.”
It is the initial race to Istanbul, however, which remains Dave’s favourite thus far, mostly for the surprise element inherent in trying something new for the first time.
“As I said, we really didn’t know what to expect. For example, before the race we’d done some prep – looking at rail maps – and said to ourselves, time and time again, that we didn’t want Belgrade to be a checkpoint as there were no trains in Serbia. And, of course, when Belgrade then came up as a checkpoint, Viktor and I looked at each other and got straight on to ‘okay, how do we get to Serbia on the bus?’
“When we finally win a race then I’m sure that will become my new favourite,” he adds. “I’ve got two more races scheduled for this year – London to Tallinn, and Vienna to Chisinau – in order to achieve it. We love all the races, though, and we have many fond memories from all of them.”
Alongside the fond memories, Dave and Viktor have also picked up a fair few traveller’s tales along the way, each of which offers a fascinating insight into life on a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants overseas race.
“The key stories we keep coming back to are probably the times when something didn’t go to plan,” says Dave. “For example, there is the ‘ferry curse’. We were comfortably winning the race to Tirana, reaching Bari a few hours before anyone else. Admittedly, we knew people would catch up as there were two ferries to Albania, both leaving at exactly the same time: 11pm. What we didn’t know was that the booking site – the one which most of us used – had got the timings mixed up for both ferries, and so while 15 of us had boarded the, ahem, ‘fastest’ ferry, we had to sit and watch the other half-dozen people steam off into the distance and get the top positions ahead of us.
“We will also never forget trying to cross the border from Bulgaria into Turkey on a coach. We handed our Jersey passports over – only for the border guard, who had lived in London for ten years, to declare them as fakes and say that he’d never heard of Jersey. 20 minutes later, and after much Google mapping, he finally let us through, although he was still convinced Jersey didn’t exist.
“The sheer joy of finishing – in whatever position – is something we always cherish. It’s only then we can take off the backpack, have a beer and relax, and look forward to a few days off in whichever city we have finished. Even though it is a competition, and now a league table, we are all incredibly competitive when we’re racing, and then we’re all sociable at the other end – meeting up for dinners, cooking classes, tours of nearby countries, constantly swapping stories and places we’ve been to, both on and off the race.
“Next up is a race to Tallinn, which will begin on Saturday 2 August. There is usually a theme to each race and in this case it’s Brutalist architecture. Viktor and I have already been researching possible routes – we never get them right, though.”
If, having read about Dave and Viktor’s adventures above, any JEP readers are now eager to take part in a similar challenge, well, you’re in luck. Because so taken was Dave by the Lupine Racing challenges that he has now co-created a Jersey equivalent: the JET Jaunt.
First launched in 2024, the annual fundraiser is now in its second year, with the 2025 Jaunt – Passage to Prague – due to take place from Friday 19 to Sunday 21 September.
“In Istanbul, we spent some time with James Finnerty, who came up with the overall concept, and I asked him if he would ever white-label the format for charities, and from there the JET Jaunt was conceived. I’d joined JET as a trustee a few months before the race and, in one of the first board meetings, there was a desire to have a large-scale fundraising activity in place – and the stars aligned.
“The great thing about these races is that most people can take part – I always say that if you can take a bus or catch a train, then you can take part. The Jersey Employment Trust is a charity and so that encourages inclusivity for all. It is, I think, much more attractive to a larger amount of people than, say, a bike ride, a trek or a run.”
The first JET Jaunt saw participants travelling from St Malo to Monaco and raised a whopping £24,000 for JET in the process, all of which went towards supporting Islanders who have a disability or long-term health condition in the workplace.
“For anyone who watches Race Across the World, here you have a version on your doorstep where you can experience some of the highs and lows of the racers you see on TV. Bring your friends, work colleagues, family members along – see who can get to the finish line the fastest, and all while raising money for a worthwhile cause.”
Sadly for Dave, he is one of the few Islanders who isn’t allowed to take part in the race, due to him being a trustee of the charity.
“Along with Matt Tabb, a fellow trustee, I will be setting off with the racers on the ferry to St Malo and then heading straight to Prague to set up the finish line,” he says. “Before then we’ve been sorting out the routes and raising sponsorship money to cover the costs so that all fundraising for competitors goes straight to the charity.
“I want to give a massive thank you to CSC, Ports of Jersey and All Island Media and all of those people who support us throughout the year and help to make the JET Jaunt the event it is.”
Finally, then, does Dave have any top tips or handy hints for budding JET Jaunters?
“Plan for more than one opportunity – you never know when the ferry curse will strike,” he replies. “Apart from that, it’s practical stuff like carrying small change for station toilets, forgetting the diet for three days, having plenty of water, having a back-up battery pack – and sleeping whenever you can.”

*For more on the JET Jaunt, or to sign up, visit lupine.co.uk/race/2025-jet-jaunt.html