Would you enjoy some of the challenges participants experienced in these races? How about going to a miniature version of the Netherlands outside of The Hague, where one towers over the landscape, and coming with a versions of a Japanese monster movie impression and plot line lasting 30-45 seconds? Or, visiting an African immigrant market in Brussels and asking the locals to help you find gazelle meat lunch, a church that conducts services in Swahili, and a bakan batik to model on the street. Perhaps you'd rather enter a Go-Kart race in Koblenz?
Competitours Amazing Race for Ordinary Travelers
Contestants on the Amazing Race TV show race around the world, but on a Competitours nine-day adventure races the stops and experiences are designed to challenge you and immerse you in the culture of the countries you are going to visit. Each trip has a secret itinerary and participants are fed the information a half-day before each stop.These intriguing adventure travel trips pit teams of two against one another, starting from the meeting in a New York airport, where everyone gets the first set of challenges. At each stop, participants can customize their daily challenge itineraries from 2- to 5 choices, but every challenge is designed to immerse the travelers in the local culture. Each Competitask is worth a specific number of points, depending upon the difficulty and the creativity required to perform it. The tasks require a combination of inventiveness, teamwork, resourcefulness, daring and wackiness.
Teams document their challenges with portable video cameras. The judges focus on substance when looking at the videos, versus cool editing, camera angles or special effects.
Get a First-Hand Report on the First Competitours
Eleven teams participated in the first Competitours, basically a test run in March. A blog by the Gadling Team, a husband and wife duo, gives an entertaining eye into the variety of tasks - which ranged from a scavenger hunt in Cologne to creating a video suggesting a clever use for the Castle de Chambord, not far from Paris. You can see some of the videos created by participants if you click on Travel...Compete...Win.Anyone Can Enter a Competitours Race
The 2011 European Tour Dates are July 23 - August 1. You don't have to audition for these trips. Teams on the first trips ranged from married couples and a reunion of best friends from high school, to a father and son duo, to two teams where members hadn't met before the trip. The challenges are so varied that anyone from age 18 to 68 - the ages of participants during the first trip - will find ones to their liking.Competitours is the brainchild of Steve Belkin, who participated in the 2004 around-the-world Global Scavenger Hunt. After returning home, he decided to create this mini-Amazing Race for the rest of us adventurous travelers.
Grand Prize Winners Get a Travel Spree
The winning team shares $5500 or 60% of prize pool.Cost and Contact Info for Competitours
The prices include some airfare, hotels, daily train travel and more. Competitours has a unique "Travel Now, Pay Later Policy" for the moment. According to Belkin, "We don't get paid until after your trip is concluded and you can confirm that you indeed received everything that we committed in our price." To learn more, visit Competitours.To learn about other exciting adventure travel races for the ultra competitive and for those who simply want to turn their next trip into a more moderate version of a reality TV-style adventure race, visit Adventure Travel Races.
