Editor’s Note
Adventure doesn’t have to mean big budgets, built rigs, or high-dollar performance parts. Sometimes, all it takes is an old Golf, a full tank of fuel, and a willingness to get a little lost. What Dani Blasco has built with the VW Golf Challenge isn’t just an event, it’s a blueprint for how to live a better car life. It’s about saying yes to dirty hot hatches, gravel roads, breakdowns, and bad coffee in good company. And as you’ll read below, it proves once again that the best memories aren’t made by staying comfortable. They’re made by going anyway.
Article and Photos by Dani Blasco
A few weeks ago, we wrapped the 10th edition of the VW Golf Challenge Morocco. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s probably one of the most wild and joyful VW adventures on the planet. It’s not a race. It’s not a tour. It’s something else entirely. Since 2012, this thing I started on a whim has taken hundreds of old Golfs across some of the most brutal, beautiful terrain North Africa has to offer.
It started with a gut feeling and a Golf Country. Just me, my brother, my dad, and a few friends. Six cars. No backup. No plan other than heading into the desert. Looking back now, it feels insane that we actually pulled it off. The second year almost didn’t happen—canceled due to lack of participants. Later we hit pause for two full years while Morocco shut its borders for COVID. But I couldn’t let it die. I didn’t want it to be just another failed idea. So we kept at it.
Now, 13 years later, we’ve hosted editions in Romania and Tunisia, but this year we were back where it all began. Morocco. Bigger than ever. 100 cars. Nine countries. First five generations of Golfs. And still the same spirit that kicked it all off.
It begins with the ferry. Algeciras to Tangier. Once you hit Moroccan soil, the road ahead is 1,200 miles of dirt, gravel, sand, and busted pavement. Seven days, seven stages, through the Atlas Mountains and deep into the Sahara. Every single day, you earn your miles.
This time, we aimed for Marrakech. But the real destination? It's always been the same: that unspoken connection between people who would never meet otherwise. Strangers turned family. A convoy of cracked dashboards, clunky gearshifts, roof racks rattling, school supplies stacked in the back for kids in forgotten villages. That’s why we do it.
Breakdowns are a given. Getting stuck is part of the ritual. But no one gets left behind. We run GPS trackers on every car, and our support crew includes Porsche Cayennes and local mechanics rolling with us. Still, most of the time it’s the teams that rescue each other. Someone pulls you out of a sand trap one day, you hand them a spare control arm the next. That’s the unwritten rule: no ego, just empathy.
This year, I saw everything from bone-stock 1.6 diesels to full-blown off-road freaks—a Mk4 V6 4Motion, a mid-engine Mk1 Caddy on a tube chassis with rear-drive and a 1.8T. And every single car crossed the finish line.
That’s the magic of the Challenge. No stopwatch. No podium. Just grit, smiles, and a trail of dust behind you. You can mod your car however you like—sump guards, lift kits, big lights. Or go nuts if that’s your thing. The only limits are your wallet and your imagination.
We sleep in hotels most nights, but a couple evenings we camp under the stars. Haimas, showers, food, the works. And yeah, there’s a costume party that has somehow become sacred. Imagine 200 people dressed as bananas, pirates, or aliens, dancing their asses off in some hotel in the middle of nowhere. It makes zero sense and total sense at the same time.
When the week ends, you blink and it’s over. But the Golf Challenge doesn’t end with the last mile. The months leading up to it matter just as much. The stories. The busted knuckles. The WhatsApp group you never mute again. Over 70% of this year’s participants had done it before. 20% had been at least five times. It’s not just an event. It’s a family you didn’t know you needed.
What started as a crazy road trip with a few Golfs is now a legit thing. Volkswagen even picked it up and shared it on their global channels. That meant a lot. Not because we needed the exposure. But because it confirmed something I’ve always believed: if you build something with passion, and you stay true to what made it matter in the first place, people will find it.
