If you're looking for something new to watch on telly, look no further — Race Across the World 2026 is back, and with it, a host of fresh new faces and possibly the most ambitious route to date.
The sixth series of the hit BBC show launched on Thursday, 2nd April, with the five brave and adventurous teams taking on the challenge to win a large cash prize — £20,000 to be exact — racing more than 12,000km across Europe and Asia, the largest continental area on earth.
The route takes the teams through eight countries in one of the show's most complex and testing paths to date, including Italy, Greece, Türkiye, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia. Conditions are expected to swing from 30-degree Mediterranean heat to subarctic temperatures of –20°C. And they’ve got to do it all on a budget of less than £26 per person per day. Yikes.
With the new series comes a host of friendly new faces, including doctors, hypnotherapists, architects, and a daughter-and-dad duo. Here's an introduction to the season 6 cast, including their names, jobs and inspiration for joining the show:
Who’s in the Race Across the World season 6 cast?
Meet Katie (21) and Harrison (23), two siblings from Manchester who do everything together. Katie's an account manager and Harrison's a finance assistant, so you'd expect their similar skillsets would help them align their strategy for the race, but we'll just have to watch the show to find out how they fare. Harrison says he was excited about the opportunity to travel — something that he's never really enjoyed due to going from school to studying to a corporate job. Similarly, Katie is excited to push her boundaries and learn more about the world, describing it as a “once in a lifetime opportunity”.
Plus, why you don’t need to feel guilty about it.
Jo and Kush
BFFs Jo and Kush are both 19-year-old students from Liverpool who are fresh out of high school and still living at home. For them, Race Across the World 2026 is their first taste of freedom and independence (talk about a gap year!). The boys are hoping their youth and inexperience will lead to them being underestimated by the group — something they can take advantage of. “I think that being young, we will kind of hopefully be brushed over like we don’t have the experience, and then we can secretly work in silence and take over,” says Kush.
Molly and Andrew
This is Molly and Andrew, a father-daughter duo from Northern Ireland. Molly is a 23-year-old junior doctor, preparing to start a career in medicine, and Andrew is a 54-year-old geography teacher (those geographical skills should come into good use, we reckon!). The pair have always been super close, and Molly is keen to prove to her dad that she's more capable than he might believe. Andrew describes the race as something he's ‘always wanted to do but never had the willingness to do it, nor the money or the circumstances’.
Cousins Puja (31) and Roshni (32) are both from London and have spent their twenties killing it in London, building successful careers and putting their travel plans on hold. Now in their early thirties, the duo, who are fans of the show, are taking on the race due to feeling like they're experiencing a ‘career block’. Doctor Puja says: “I just wanted to do something that was for myself, for my personal life, and something that will give me memories to last the rest of my life”. Roshni, a software engineer, has some experience when it comes to backpacking, having spent some time in Cuba: “The closest thing I've done is Cuba, where you have homestays, and then you don't necessarily know where you're going next, but you kind of just talk to the locals and figure it out from there. And you have no internet there, so you have to get around.”
Lastly, but certainly not least, we have Mark (66), a retired architect from London, and Margo (59), a hypnotherapist from Liverpool. The pair are in-laws and have had a, shall we say, temperamental relationship for the last 40 years… however, they've decided to put differences aside to take on Race Around the World 2026. We can't wait to see how it all plays out.
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