Hello and hey from Sweden!
Eh…
sort of.
Today we’re making a brief interruption to our regular programming
because it’s time for this year’s official
Tim Traveller Viewer Challenge!
If you don’t know what one of these is,
and to be fair I’ve only done one of them before,
basically I’m going to set you a challenge,
if you’d like to join in, you can then go out and do it,
take a photo or make a video about it,
post it on the internet,
and in around a month from now
I’ll put all the best ones in one big video on this channel.
If you were here last year for the Mediocre Mountain Challenge
then you already know more or less how this works
but this year I’m setting you a different challenge
and it might be a bit more tricky.
Now a couple of months back,
in a slightly desperate attempt to make up for
all the international travel that I haven’t being doing recently,
I made a video where I visited places in Paris that look like other countries,
and now it’s over to you for what I’m calling
the International Staycation Challenge.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it,
is to find somewhere near you that looks like it isn’t.
(Wi nøt trei a staycatiøn in Sweden this yer?)
In other words,
go somewhere in your local area,
in your country,
that looks like it’s from another country,
somewhere completely different.
It can be an unusual building, a monument, a landscape…
anything that makes it look like you’re in a different country to the one you’re
really in.
And when you get there
take a photo or make a video
and we’ll see who can go on the best International Staycation.
Here’s some photos I put on Instagram as an example,
but I reckon you can do better:
there will be bonus points for style, creativity, originality, and making it look convincing.
Basically the more you commit to pretending you’ve genuinely gone on an international
trip the better.
The only rule is that it’s a real photo of a real place in your local area
and you haven’t just photoshopped yourself onto a background.
Once you’ve got your photo or video,
then post it on Twitter, on Instagram, or on the Tim Traveller Facebook page,
with the hashtag #InternationalStaycationChallenge.
And that’s quite a lot of letters,
so the first challenge is to spell it correctly.
If you’re not on social media,
you can send it to me at thetimtraveller@gmail.com,
with the subject line “International Staycation Challenge”,
but ideally just post it on social media
because last year my inbox nearly exploded.
In your post please include which country you are so-called "visiting",
but don’t forget to say where it actually is as well,
that’s important, say where it actually is as well,
because I’ll need that information for my video,
and also if you are posting on social media
you don’t want to get accidentally cancelled
because people think you’ve been illegally travelling somewhere you’re not supposed to.
If you want to make your international staycation bigger
and go to multiple locations and post multiple photos
that’s fine too,
and if you have a YouTube channel
of course go ahead and make a vlog about your trip,
send me a link when you post it,
and like last year I’ll create a big playlist
so everyone can enjoy all your adventures.
And last year there were some seriously good videos. You're a talented bunch!
The deadline for your entries is the 14th of July,
that’s Bastille Day.
Why Bastille Day?
Well, it’s just an easy day to remember as a cut-off point.
And it goes without saying but only post photos or videos
if you’re happy for me to potentially use them in a video on this channel.
Of course, I have no idea how many of you will actually do this
so it could end up being a very short video
it could end up being a very long one,
if it’s anything like last year then there were so many brilliant entries that I couldn’t
fit you all in
(and even some of you who did get in were only on screen for about a millisecond)
but hopefully at least you’ll enjoy taking part anyway.
I admit this particular challenge is going to be easier if, like me,
you live in a big multicultural city with lots of international buildings
but even in smaller places you can still find amazing things.
Maybe you’ll discover a beautiful Indian Temple in Northern Holland,
or a half-size recreation of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling in a Sussex seaside resort,
or an entire small Danish town in southern California.
There is a lot of random stuff out there!
If you really can’t find anything
and the best you can do is take a photo outside your local Chinese restaurant
by all means just do that to join in,
but I would say it’s unlikely to get into to the final video.
Unless of course your local Chinese restaurant looks like this one.
So there we go.
Any questions or feedback about the Challenge, pop it in the comments and I’ll do my best
to reply.
I’m looking forward to seeing your International Staycations!
Good luck,
have fun,
your time starts NOW.