How the smallest car conquered the biggest road trip in Europe
David Ward’s Smart ForTwo might be tiny but that didn’t stop him from tackling a trip from the northernmost point in Europe to the southernmost.
While most people considering a 5,000-mile, month-long adventure might opt to drive something rather more spacious Ward is a big fan of the little city car and had even fitted a different example with a powerful motorcycle engine and taken part in the first European Cannonball Run.
“I was on my way to Scotland with my cousin from New Zealand and we were talking about just how far north it was possible to to drive,” he explains. “By the time we arrived I’d found the most northerly point in Europe and the most southerly and decided to drive between the two. I'm one of these people that once I get something in my head, I have to do it.”
Just getting to Nordkapp in Norway from his home north of London was a five-day journey, while his final destination on the island of Gavdos south of Crete was over 3,500 miles away.
Ward winged it the whole way, avoiding major roads and big cities where possible. He took a meandering route through Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and then Greece.
Aiming to cover around 200 mile per day, Ward stayed in small hotels and B&Bs although he found himself having to sleep in the Smart on occasion. Compared to other overland adventurers he met on the way his automotive accommodation was a little cramped.
“In Lithuania I met a family who had this Land Rover, fully decked out for an expedition, with jacked up suspension and a roof tent. They came up to say hello thinking that I must live locally and when I told them where I’d come from and where I was going, the teenage son turned to his dad and their car with a look that said ‘did we really need this?”.
As you can imagine, packing for a month-long driving adventure when your car itself could almost count as had luggage is quite a challenge. With most of the space taken up with a spare wheel and extra fuel, Ward opted to focus on a strategy that would see his load lighten as the journey progressed. “I bought the cheapest underwear and T-shirts I could find and decided that I would just wear them as long as I could and then dispose of them along the way!", he says.
“There were so many highlights,” he adds. “I had an amazing meal of reindeer in a hut in Finland, I saw a moose early one morning in Sweden, there was Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, and sort of stumbling in to Serbia and Bosnia, and then the final little ferry to Gavdos. Along the way everyone I met was really interested and I think it's because I also stayed in small places as much as possible.”
Having completed this giant journey in the diminutive Smart Ward has even bigger plans. “I’m already working on my route across the USA,” he says.
The isolated island of St Helena in the South Atlantic has just got its first public electric car charge point, opening up the remote region to EV road trippers.