Harrison Devine says watching himself back on Race Across the World feels like seeing “someone else” — and that is before the final episode even airs. The 24-year-old finance assistant and his sister Katie, 21, an account manager, have been reliving a journey that took them more than 12,000km across Europe and Asia, and they are now counting down to the last stretch of the series on One.
The final episode of the latest series is due on Thursday 21 May at 20:00 BST, with the winner set to collect the £20,000 prize. For the Devines, the broadcast has turned into its own kind of aftershock. Harrison said he recognises himself on screen, but only just. “You recognise it's you but it was a long time ago and so much happens in a day that you don't remember everything that you see on the screen,” he said.
He said the experience has been disorienting as much as entertaining. “Sometimes you're mortified, sometimes you're laughing at yourself, it's just a really weird experience and something that isn't normal for us,” he said. Katie was blunter about her own reaction to seeing the race again. “When I watch it, I am always laughing because I don't remember it being like that,” she said, adding that the show is “so much funnier to watch” when the immediate pressure has gone and the journey can be seen in full.
That hindsight matters because the race was built on strain. Race Across the World sends pairs of travellers across long distances with no phone and limited cash, forcing them to navigate, bargain and improvise on the move. This series followed teams from Palermo in Sicily to Hatgal in northern Mongolia, a route that stretched across Europe and Asia and ran to more than 12,000km, or 7,450 miles.
The Devines said the sibling bond that carried them through the route is also what shaped their arguments. “We just know each other so well and we're just like an extension of each other,” Katie said. “The meaner we are to each other, the better we get along,” she added. “Other siblings may use that as a fight but the meaner we are, the stronger our relationship is.”
That is the friction at the heart of their run: the pair needed each other to go the distance, but the same closeness that helped them through the race also made every setback sharper. Now the contest is down to one final episode, and the question is no longer whether the Devines can survive the road, but whether their race has brought them any closer to the prize that has been waiting at the finish line all along. The final episode will also be available on iPlayer.
