Forget Frommer’s and Fodor’s and their boring, traditional travel itineraries. Who wants to spend every day holed up in a museum anyways? Thanks in part to the TV show Amazing Race the idea of more adventurous travel, even in less likely locations like Western Europe, is catching on and operators are popping up to help fill that niche in the market.
Competitours is the first company looking to help folks looking for such an adventure that I’ve seen with a complete offering available. Their trips are a low-stress approach to competitive and adventurous travel. They include competitions for each day of the trip, including multiple options for each day. Feeling lazy or hung over? Stay close to the city center. Looking for something crazy? Head out to the end of the line on the local subway and discover something random there. And when you’re done with the day’s adventure you simply log on to find out your next destination and how you’re supposed to get there.
You earn points for each challenge completed and documented (via a short video uploaded to their site). At the end of the trip the team with the most points wins. Pretty simple, and it seems like a lot of fun.
They include most everything in the cost of the trip, including transportation (both across the pond and within Europe), lodging and even a bit of spending money each day to complete the challenges. You won’t know where you’re starting until a couple days prior to the trip and you don’t know the next day’s adventure until late in the current day, so this sort of thing isn’t for the control-freak traveler out there, but if you’re willing to go in with an open mind and a flexible schedule it seems like a great option.
They’re also getting some press from National Geographic Traveler, which is pretty impressive.
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5 countries in 14 days is pretty fast-paced, but to win you’ll need to be pretty up to speed on the places before you go. I reckon Competitours will be like a master-class – deep-dive learning on specific countries and cultures you’re interested in.
Sounds like a blast. We’re going to send some writers (not me unfortunately 🙁 ) to document the practice run in March.
Check out The Travel Editor.com’s write up here:
http://www.thetraveleditor.com/article/1908/Feature_Article_Experience_Competitours_The_Amazing_Race_for_the_21st_Century.html