A Trip Around the World

Santa Monica, CA  (December 17^th) Tis’ the season to turn your dreams into reality. A recent National Geographic/Yahoo! poll showed that the #1 ultimate dream vacation people wanted most was a single trip around-the-world trip! Almost 66% of those queried wanted to leave the rat race behind for an once-in-a-lifetime quick lap around the world. Well, wait no more.

The Global Scavenger Hunt™ beginning next spring may be your ticket to fulfilling your dreams by offering only the most intrepid global travelers a three-week around-the-world travel adventure. Travelers will go from Los Angeles to New York—the long way—engaging in the sights, sounds and flavors of the world like few ever have!

Just 50 travelers, twenty-five teams of two, will be permitted to compete in the 4^th edition of this travel adventure competition and charity event that runs between April 11 and May 3, 2008, with one particularly travel savvy Team ultimately being crowned The World’s Greatest Travelers™. The event has already gathered plenty of media attention including: the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, National Geographic Traveler, NPR’s Savvy Traveler, FOX-TV and Orbitz.com. Outside Magazine called The Global Scavenger Hunt, “One of the 50 Most Amazing Trips in the World…”    

This amazing international adventure is designed to test the travel skills and savvy of independent travelers wanting to keep it real; for letting ordinary people do extraordinary things; for globe-trotters who want to visit many of man and nature’s wonders; for traveler-junkie’s who are yearning to participate in a real life travel adventure competition; for passionate action-oriented travelers who don’t want preplanned, prepackaged and organized tours--who embrace spontaneity, surprise and letting serendipity overtake them; and for conscientious travelers who want to get exposed to, learn about, and actively participate in local cultures and traditions up close and personal.

Travelers take note however: no death-defying reality TV-like stunts will be required of the participants in the 2008 edition of The Global Scavenger Hunt™. Resourcefulness, along with the curious urge to explore, remain the only requirements in this exciting and participatory global adventure. Teams will not only conduct hundreds of cultural-oriented scavenges in at least 10 nations on 4 continents over the three week adventure, but will be tasked with: meditating with monks, training like a ninja, taking flamenco lessons, learning yoga, Asian cooking with native chefs, searching out Lost Cities, riding elephants to sacred temples, partaking in local crafts, and decoding local languages to unravel scavenger hunt clues.

“Our cultural immersion moves Teams away from having their noses stuck in guidebooks and gets them engaged in the human connection of travel,” continues William Chalmers the annual events organizer, travel book author and winner of a previous race around the world on public transportation, “It’s from those personal interactions, experiences and active participation that we all grow as people and we better understand the world around us. That’s what we’re all about—trusting strangers in strange lands.”

Teams in The Global Scavenger Hunt will also be doing it for a good cause by collectively logging over one million miles to help raise funds towards a $1 million goal for lauded humanitarian organizations like: KIVA, Partners in Health, Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF and CARE among others. The Teams of two will have collectively walked, bush-taxied, bullet trained, tuk-tuked, bicycled, flown, boated and ridden camels, elephants, oxcarts and rickshaws, over a million miles traveling from Los Angeles to New York – the long way!

GreatEscape2008 is limited to 25 two-person Teams--singles may apply. The event’s entry fee is $9,900 per person, which covers all international airfare, 23-nights in First Class hotels and about 40% of meals. For additional info or to apply, please visit GlobalScavengerHunt.com or contact the GreatEscape Adventures at 310.281.7809.

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