'Race Across the World rows broke out because of torturous food rations'

• Race Across the World's mother and daughter pairing Eugenie and Isabel have proved themselves as serious contenders in the race, already coming first in two of the legs.

• The stars told Yahoo about their experience of filming and how many of their rows broke out because of lack of sleep and lack of food.

It was torture watching people eating and seeing what we could have been having but we just genuinely couldn't afford it on Race Across the World.

We should have prepared for the lack of food. Some of the teams did periods of fasting.

You need food to feed the brain and it affects the emotions. We weren't eating very much, sometimes a small bag of crackers a day each, and then on top of that we had lack of sleep. So a lot of the tension and all of the additional arguments we were having were to do with the lack of food. We were hangry and tangry because of the tiredness.

We are foodies. Even before we went on Race Across the World, we love food from different cultures. We would walk past the store and we would want to eat the food but we couldn't afford it. Or we thought we couldn't afford it.

Race Across the World is not a natural situation to be with anybody 24/7. We knew it wasn't going to be easy but that's something we didn't discuss before the show. We're similar but different. The irritability from every little thing was bugging the both of us.

It's inevitable that Race Across the World brought us closer together. We've got more of an understanding of each other's personalities and boundaries. What is so beautiful is that we've got memories that no one else has, it's just between the two of us.

Before Race Across the World, we hadn't spent much alone time together. We learned a lot about each other, including showing our vulnerabilities and being there to give that reassurance to the other.

Now inspired by the Race Across the World experience, we are planning on a backpacking trip each year - even if it's just for a few days. This year is discounted with Isabel doing her masters but we will continue doing it year after year until we can't. We had a fab time on a city break to Luxembourg together since the race. So definitely we will continue to holidaying together.

Race Across the World was so rewarding. It gives you faith in humanity. We've interacted with so many locals and everyone was so willing to help. They were just so beautiful, so kind, so loving and the hospitality. These people who don't have much were willing to give. It was so great with how they received us.

At first, we did haemorrhage money in Japan but we realised this. Then we started to get more of a balance when it came to seeing the country as well as working and not blowing so much of the budget. Having a calculator was really helpful when working out how much money we had budget wise.

We divided our money and there was one person paying for everything. That was our way of trying to balance out where we were at budget wise. As soon as the first money pouch was empty, we knew we had 50% left. That's why our budget was so bad at the start because we didn't know what we were doing. We were winging it - and enjoying it!

Our bags were very heavy because we were over prepared. We had some belly laughs with how heavy our rucksacks were - we had two of everything. Visuals are universal so we made visuals of different modes of transport that we might need.

Before the race, we did go for walks in the forest with weights on our backs. We discussed strategy. We didn't know where we were going so we focussed on learning different languages - Spanish, French, German - but as you see, it was no use whatsoever.

Some advice for next year's Race Across the World contestants? Don't weigh your knickers like Stephen and Viv but really be thinking about what you need. What are the actual essentials? Make do with less clothes. Try fasting. Have a bit of downtime, bring a book. Be in the moment and definitely bring a camera.

Race Across the World's Eugenie and Isabel told their story to Lily Waddell.

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