Would you enjoy some of the challenges participants in the inaugural race in March did? 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 adventure race you choose from 8, 10 and 14-day trips 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 9- to 12 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...WinAnyone Can Enter a Competitours Race
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.
