A short overview of the project. Drivers Mikael and Juho have now been involved in this project full time while running their own businesses. Rico and Misa have been working very long days in their summer jobs, respectively, so that the shortened period at work would not reflect too harshly on their winter budgets when they continue their studies. Today the drivers are just seeking a piece of quiet with their missuses and forget (if at all possible) the challenges of the journey. The car Things are coming along with the car right on time. The mechanics will be making some fixes around the interior of the car and the vehicle will be serviced on Monday and Tuesday. A video update will follow in the coming week, so I won’t steal all thunder from that now :) Visas When we decided to change the carefully planned and prepared southern route to the safer northern one, we knew visas would pose a problem for us. The number of required visas jumped from three to six per driver. We also lost another month due to a passport getting lost in the mail and a delay in the return mail from Kyrgyz Embassy. At the moment, everything seems to get sorted thanks to the great customer service of our travel agency Lähialuematkat. A full on informative blog post on the visas and applying for them will follow a bit later. Finance We’ve received a surprising amount of queries about this subject from our readers. Let me further clarify: the costs of the journey will be paid from the drivers’ own pockets. Travel expenses have been split between Juho’s and Mikael’s companies, ( Kameratori.fi and Kuvastin.fi ). The biggest part of the funding comes from the video that will be shot during the journey, Dream.do. The drivers will
also pay for visas etc. from their own pockets. This means that not a single euro of the sponsoring businesses will go to cover the travel costs. Also, we will not be using more of the proceeds from the jewellery sales to travel expenses than the cheapest available air cargo would cost. Exceptions to this policy will only be made in case of a major problem or accident. Donations Donations have kicked off already before the trip with a few thousand euros. However, the most crucial deadline for the sponsoring companies is not our departure from Finland but the start of our return journey from Nepal. That is where Misa and Mikael will swap places and Misa will bring the new
advertisement stickers with him. So to inform our prospective partners, the deadline to do some good with your marketing budgets is August 18, 2012. Banner places in two locations on the side of the car can be bought at any time in periods of two weeks. I would also like to remind the sponsoring businesses that all donations are FULLY tax-deductible as they are normal advertisement costs. Publicity “Drive to Nepal” project has raised interest in the digital and traditional media alike. So far, the newspapers Aamulehti and Kangasalan Sanomat have published stories about us but we have been interviewed by several other papers as well, so coverage will follow little by little. Online publications and blogs have also started to discover the project and we are grateful for all the amazing feedback! The number of Facebook fans doubled to more than 1500 between Wednesday and Thursday. Many thanks to all of you who shared the driver photo, it was visible on the walls
of approx 60 000 Facebook users! Our Facebook reach has increased to over 120 000 people. … In other words everything is proceeding swell like and for that we owe big thanks to our top team and you, our readers!