You'll need the one or other official document. So I'll list them below. The required ones and the recommended ones. Take care of the documents in time! The visa for Russia can take a few weeks and it's just a big issue less on the list when done.

Documents for your car

Car Registration Papers (also: Fahrzeugschein or Auto-Pass). You should have the original with you. Especially the Russians take car documents pretty serious (unless you want to take the route of bribery).

Car Insurance (make sure all countries you plan to visit are included, this is important). These should also be there in original format (the "green international insurance card"). We paid roughly 300 EUR for fully comprehensive insurance with two months before and after the rallye.

This is the essential that should have your car prepared for crossing borders. The rest is paperwork for custom declaration at the various borders. This is individual and can take place directly at the border.

Documents for yourself

For yourself you should have the following documents ready and with you (in original and a copy in your luggage):

A proper travel passport. For some countries it needs to have a certain validity (eg. 18 months left), so check this in time.

Driver license and a international driver license. This latter document is basically a translated copy with some official stamps on it. We have never been asked for any kind of driver license but it was cheap and other websites recommended it (that's why we got it in the first place)

Required Visa. We actually only needed a visa für Russia. We took a double entry to also make a dip into Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania ont he Baltic Sea.

Health insurance (Russia requires this, but is a good idea anyway) incl. transport back to your home country. These are not expensive. 20 bucks should get you a very good package for a full year.

We also got an legal protection/costs insurance that would pay bail out and organise German speaking lawyer and translaters in any country at any time. You never know, might come in handy. But after having done the rallye, I would say this is probably not really nessesary. On the other hand, something like this costs 50-100 EUR per year.

With these documents prepared you have everything you need for yourself or the car. There isn't much left that can happen to you even if it comes bad.

Street-Maps

Various options. Foldable as big as a living room, as a big book weighting 10 pounds or just the snippets you need?

We had the ADAC Europe Street Atlas, i don't know ... 1,500 pages. Very useful, will absolutely do, costs about 30 bucks.

On the other hand, we where not allowed to used highways (as a rule of the rallye). Sometimes navigation around the highways was a bit of a hassle. The maps in our book did have quite a degree of detail, but somethimes you wish you had it at a larger scale (especially closer to or within bigger cities). Here a good option is to buy local maps. This will enable you to decipher the place names along the road correctly - and thus your location (or get ones in your native language, if you don't know your route in advance ... go for the big paper edition).

Oh ... and when using a compass in the car ... step out the car and a few steps away ... otherwise you'll think you drive in a northern direction whereas you are actually going south. Just a hint. Took us a while until we realized it.

What else?

Car Road Help, also automobile clubs (you know, ADAC, AAC, etc, these guys that tow you home when you break down somewhere). Just a backup in case things really go bad and you are left with a wasted car. If similar services are included in your general car insurance, the better. Considering the costs of this trip, it's a small investment and worth it.

Catalog of speed limits and fees when you go speeding, alcohol level's and other important traffic rules for every country. Just google a bit. You'll find plenty.

Credit Cards. For getting gas across Europe a credit card is always handy. Some remote petrol stations across Northern Europe are unmanned and only accept credit cards. If you have a debit card make sure it has enough money loaded. Visa is a good choice (we had no problem with it). So is MasterCard. American Express is sometimes not accepted (but usually it is). I don't remember about Diners Club. Maestro (EC Cards) also work pretty much anywhere.


Last modified: 26.03.2018, edited by: Nils