Competitours 2015 – Follow Team Awesome Duo

Competitours Season 2015 is here and with us catching our flight to Brussels in a few hours, I wanted to set the stage for what’s going to be happening and how you can follow Sam and I as we race through Europe.

For this trip I wanted to do something different.  Instead of taking photos and writing posts about the experience, what better way to show you what it’s like to be on a Competitours “tour” than to show you through episodes just like the real Amazing Race.

Follow us LIVE!

As a tribute to The Amazing Race, Sam and I will be doing daily short videos uploaded to the Going Awesome Places YouTube channel.  Who knows what footage I’ll be able to capture along the way but you’ll definitely be in for a surprise are we go from day to day.

Follow the #TeamAwesomeDuo and #Competitours2015 hashtag on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to see all the live updates too!

• Episode 1:  Oh Canada!
• Episode 2:  A Day Of Firsts In Brussels
• Episode 3:  Late Night Escapes
• Episode 4:  I’m On A Boat And Tuk Tuk 
• Episode 5:  Tour de Antwerp
• Episode 6:  Becoming A Chocolateur
• Episode 7:  Dance Off
• Episode 8:  Iron Chef Italia
• Episode 9:  Detour to Pompeii
• Episode 10:  Via Ferrata del Diavolo
• Episode 11:  Need for Speed
• Episode 12:  Stuck in a Labyrinth
• Episode 13:  A Bittersweet End

The Lead Up

In the month leading up to Season 2015 of the tour, we were assigned three challenges which were each scored either by judges or people’s choice.

Pre Challenge #1: Introducing Team Awesome Duo

We were tasked to create 30 second video introducing our name.  Sam came up of the idea of doing something totally spontaneous and this is what we came up with.

We were the unanimous winner for People’s Choice but ended up not being in the top 3 for the judge’s pick for “Best Name” and “Best Video”.  10 points out of the possible 30.

Pre Challenge #2: Introducing Our Mascot

For our second challenge, we had to pick a mascot.  This one was a tough one for awhile as we through out random ideas like a Minion, banana, Energizer Bunny, Domo, and Phil Keoghan.  In the end, while it felt a little bait to use a well-known mascot for the actual Amazing Race, we felt that it was our true superfan-ness that made the selection of the travelling gnome a lot of sense.

For this challenge we won the judge’s points but didn’t get any People’s Choice points.

Pre Challenge #3: Starting Location

The last challenge was the guessing of our start location.  What made this challenge interesting was that there was a risk/reward option for scoring.

• Option 1: 25 pts if you are in top 3, but lose 15 pts if you are not in top 3
• Option 2: 10 its if you are in top 3, no point deduction if you are not in top 3

We decided to take it safe and go with Option 2 and guessed Antwerp as our starting spot.  Luckily we were in the top 3 and secured 10 points.

Current Standings

Here are the final standings:

Where We Travelled To

Support Us!

For this trip, Sam and I wanted to get our very own team t-shirts so we designed and ordered a sample batch to take with us on Competitours.  We decided to go with a simple design with our mascot gnomad in the front and our team name in the back.

If you’d like to support us and are interested in getting your very own t-shirt, head over to Teespring where I have a campaign set up.

Before I left, my good buddy Jia even got me this very recognizable mat as a send off.  If only Phil was actually going to greet us at the mat but I’ll settle for Steve who’s running the show for Competitours 🙂

Let the Amazing Race begin!

Post Trip Debrief

This crazy jaunt around Europe was a trip of a lifetime and despite not winning the cash prize, I’ll forever remember this as the time I did The Amazing Race 🙂  Find the full rundown of the experience by heading over to the 10 reasons why you should sign up for Competitours next year.