This is addressed to all of you, dear readers and backpackers: E&M poses a challenge, and all of you should feel called upon to take it!

The question is: how far can you travel with no more than 50 euros in your pocket? Apply for sponsorship from our magazine and use your chance to show us that your answer to this question exceeds all our expections!

Game Instructions

In times of organised group journeys, with masses of backpackers travelling the same ground in some remote corner of Australia or Latin America, the real adventure in travelling has disappeared. Where is the challenge of getting from one place to the next when at any moment you can look up the exact directions on Google Maps?

But now we're calling all those adventurers among you! If you want to experience a different style of holiday, filled with uncertainties and spontaneously changing plans, with possible lowpoints but also with unsuspected treasures and sudden strokes of luck, then dare to participate in E&M's EUROPEAN CHALLENGE!

GOAL:  It's simple. The one who travels farthest (in kilometres) with only 50 Euros in his or her pocket, wins. We provide the money, now you just have to be cleverer than your competitors.

PLAYERS:  Everyone can (and should) apply! You just should be free to travel sometime in the next three months. Shrewdness and creativity help your cause. If you are interested, write us an email, telling us why you are the best candidate to participate in the European Challenge and we will discuss all further details.

Franzi Müller; www.youthmedia.eu; CC-License(by)

Hitchhiking lady; how far will she get?

MATERIALS NEEDED:  Feel free to take with you what you need (a tent, your guitar to earn you a hot meal, a good book to shorten the time waiting for a car to stop and pick you up...). We guess the only limit here depends on your capacity to carry your own backpack.

RULES: Fair play, please! So, read carefully the following conditions:

1. 50 euros is the absolute limit of what you are allowed to spend on the trip (be it for sleeping, eating or transport) Don't bring any extra money.

2. Discover the writer in you and keep a diary (short notes or lengthy descriptions of the scenery…it's up to you). Most importantly: you have to document how you got from A to B, where you slept, what you ate and how much you spent on it. Please take a photo of the tickets and mail them to us, so that we can verify your expenses.

3. As for your ability to get around on as low-budget as possible, no limits are set to your own creativity. It's up to you if you want to travel with your own car (although, petrol being expensive, we don't recommend it), walk or hitchhike; take a tent to sleep outside or use the Couchsurfing platform; eat canned food the whole time or win the heart of an Italian Mamma to make her prepare the best homemade pasta for you. In love, war and when playing the EUROPEAN CHALLENGE, everything is allowed!

4. Don't leave Europe.

5. At the end, when you've spent your last cent, when you are hungry and tired, write us an email or call us (if you still can afford it) to tell us your exact location. We will then calculate the distance that you covered from your starting point.

6. Your name and your score (the number of kilometers you travelled) will (from now on) exist on our prestigious ranking and it is up to all those future adventurers to take the challenge and beat the record. Take some photos and tell us afterwards about your best and worst moments, the most interesting conversation or what you missed most on your journey. We will then write down your story and immortalise you!

Have we awoken your adventurous spirit? Than write to laura@europeandme.eu!

Teaser photo: Laura Knierim