Can you imagine taking a thrilling three week around the world travel adventure and visiting 10 exotic countries—but not knowing which 10 countries you would be visiting!

The 2012 edition of The Global Scavenger Hunt trip is truly A Blind Date With the World, that allows curious travelers to embrace the spontaneity, surprise and serendipity of travel, all while taking them on an innovative journey to legendary places around the world.

Outside magazine calls it, “One of the 50 Most Amazing Trips in the World,” Peter Greenberg says that, “Unlike The Amazing Race, this challenge is more about your ability to connect with cultures…,” while NationalGeographic.com says the travel competition is, “like Survivor, the Amazing Race and the Eco-Challenge all rolled into one except with much more cultural interaction.” Frommer’s lists the event as a “Dream Trip for Adventure Travelers” and as one of the world’s top adrenaline adventures.

And isn’t that what the adventure of travel—and travel adventure—is all about?

The 8th annual around the world event known as The Global Scavenger Hunt is a travel adventure competition scheduled to take place next spring between April 13th and May 5th, 2012. Applications from some of The World’s Greatest Travelers from around the globe now are now being accepted at GlobalScavengerHunt.com —this exclusive invitation-only event is limited to just 25-two person teams annually.

“Deep in the soul of a travel junkie is the deep desire for new experiences,” says William D. Chalmers, the event director and author of ‘On the Origin of the Species homo touristicus’, “Taking a blind date with the world, is one of the most exciting things any traveler can do. Think about it? You don’t know where you are going! This event takes our travelers out of their comfort zone, it keeps them guessing for three full weeks, and keeps their hearts racing with competition. It is truly an extraordinary personal experience. Oddly, we attract a lot of Type-A personalities, and participating in our adventure puts them in a topsy-turvy mental state. But they all love it.”

The Global Scavenger Hunt™ travel adventure will not only take travelers on A Blind Date With The World™, but is designed to test the travel IQ of participants; those well-honed travel skills that serious international competitors bring to the event. Like: overcoming language barriers, intercultural competence, logistic challenges, team dynamics, the heat of competition, and three week’s worth of real-world creative problem solving, while traveling to at least 10 countries performing cultural scavenges; but this real-life event is also about getting travelers to trust strangers in strange lands and about personally and actively participating in sight-doing scavenges, not just passive sight-seeing while traveling the globe.

Aside from fulfilling hundreds of Bucket List-worthy activities; from visiting exotic destinations, world heritage sites and natural wonders, a short-list of the hundreds of potential sight-doing cultural-oriented scavenges may include:

• Learning ancient meditation techniques from a yoga master in Kathmandu.
• Learning how to make baklava in a Turkish bakery.
• Taking an elephant safari searching for Bengal Tigers in Rajasthan.
• Singing German drinking songs and various national anthems in a public drinking house.
• Getting themselves invited for dinner in the home of a rural Sri Lanka family.
• Donating time helping out at an orphanage in Cambodia or a Tibetan refugee camp.
• Attending a session of Parliament in South Korea, India, Denmark or Japan.
• Being a street performer for an hour and setting up a donation hat to pay for your transport to the next town.
• Locate and visit the ‘live animal’ section of the Talaol Sao market in Laos.
• Learning how to tango properly in Buenos Aires.

“We call it a full-contact travel adventure knowing that active participation changes everything,” continues Chalmers, also fondly known by participants as the Ring Master. “The events biggest wow factor is the thrill of putting our travelers into a continuous flow of peak experiences. From beginning to end, it never ends! Our participants leave the event as thrillionaires.”

The reigning 2011 champions and The World’s Greatest Travelers trophy-holders are excited about defending their title and crown in this life-changing event against other international travelers.

The annual event has also been called life-changing because not only are there bragging rights and The World’s Greatest Travelers™ trophy at stake and the thrill of circumnavigating the globe as few ever get the opportunity to do; but because Teams will be collectively traveling more than one million kilometers in travel-a-thon fashion to help raise funds towards a $1 million goal for ongoing global charitable efforts including micro-loans supporting entrepreneurial women, and the continued building of co-ed elementary schools in developing nations such as: Kenya, Niger, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, India and Ecuador, among others.

The event is limited to 25-two person teams, with the $9,900 per person Early Bird entry fee (that ends December 16th, 2011) including: all international airfare, first class hotels, 40% of meals, along with special event gear. All travelers will be interviewed for suitability! Single travelers are welcome to apply. Apply online at GlobalScavengerHunt.com or by calling GreatEscape Adventures at 1.310.281.7809. (CST#2071053-40) Click here for a 2012 Event e-brochure.