"The Amazing Race" with a Twist of Reality

If you're one of the 9.3 million people who tune in to The Amazing Race, then chances are the explorer in you thinks "I could do that!", well, now you can - but more to your liking! If you don't watch, but consider yourself a traveler, rather than a tourist - read on!

Like the popular show, the Amazing Race, COMPETITOURS designed a travel experience where two people per team are sent on a secret trip to Europe to earn points by accomplishing a series of fun, quirky and interactive challenges, documented via their own video cam for the COMPETITOURS judges to score.
The company's judges will pick the winners based on the task recordings

And after a fun, fulfilling vacation, you may also win the prize? A worldwide travel spree grand prize of future airline tickets and hotel nights, which are valued at up to $16,000., featuring up to 40 nights at over 115 Starwood hotels spanning 51 exotic countries, plus airfare and spending money, makes the trip just THAT much more fun.

Creator Steve Belkin, notes this "Amazing Race for regular people" takes its participants throughout Europe lasting 8-14 days. Armed with a Eurail pass, a video camera and their own sense of creativity, these competitors compete in five offbeat challenges a day.

"Each team can determine their own mix of mainstream vs. niche daily itineraries. Some teams might be cynical about the Eiffel Tower while others consider it must-see. So, each team will customize their challenge choices to best meet their personal travel and touring preferences" explains Belkin.

"Competitasks"
MAINSTREAM - bustling big cities bursting with culture, food, shopping, must-see sites and must-do activities (think Rome, Stockholm, Budapest, London and everywhere in between)

NICHE - under the radar cool spots, too inconvenient for the package tours and too much research for the backpacker crowd (think ethnic enclaves in big cities, bleeding edge technology exhibits, KGB museums, poison beer recipes)

TIMELESS - rural village life where tradition and craftsmanship are still revered (think castle-lined rivers, 16th century Hatfeld & McCoys and other myths and legends, skulls as art, cuckoo clocks as passion)

AWE-INSPIRING - Europe is blessed with a diversity of natural assets (think summer skiing, river kayaking, biking through wine country, ice caving, hiking the Alps)
The CURIOUS:
Visit an African immigrant market while in Brussels and ask the locals to help you find:

Examples of Challenges:
- Head to the top of the Eiffel Tower and gather 15 tourists together to record them doing a 30-second version of the can-can.

- Visit a graffiti-filled remnant of the Berlin Wall and shoot a video as an art critic trying to provide a 'meaningful' interpretation to the graffiti...be serious, silly, sarcastic, whatever

- Visit a West African market to find a Church that conducts services in Swahili, learn and sing a hymn in the native tongue

This Editors Thoughts:

Having never watched the Amazing Race, when I first read about Producer and COMPETITOURS creator, Steve Belkin's new company, I was immediately intrigued. As a 15+ year veteran of the travel industry, I found the concept of traveling with a mission to discover or create the unexpected a brilliant way to enjoy the culture, history and nuances of a new destination. The challenges allow the competitors to discover places, history and mingle with locals, something they may not have done on their own.

Friends, family members, partners and new traveling companions will create memories and bonds that are priceless.

The brilliance is in the self discovery that takes place during such a competition in unknown destinations and cultures.

by Ilizabeth Sutera