The Best City To Visit Travel Tournament 2014 is a month-long competition where your favorite place in the world can help make your wallet $300 heavier.
To enter, all you have to do is name your favorite city in the comments of this post before next
Monday, February 24thSaturday March 1st at 12:00pm US EST.
One City Per Person First Come, First Serve
My newsletter subscribers were given the first 27 picks in this year’s tournament (sign up is free if you don’t want to miss out next time) so the cities listed below are already taken. Scan the comments underneath this post, look for the city you want to nominate, then type it in if someone else hasn’t already claimed it. Please keep in mind that many comments automatically go into moderation where they remain invisible until they’re approved. Selections are still first come, first serve, keep checking back to see if you got the city you wanted or need to pick an alternate.
These Cities Are Already Taken
A total of 128 cities can be nominated in The Best City to Visit Tournament and a quarter of the slots were taken earlier in the week:
- Istanbul, Turkey – (Connie)
- Chicago, IL, USA – (Katie)
- Mandalay, Myanmar – (Stephanie)
- Penang, Malaysia – (Are Peace)
- Kyoto, Japan – (Derek)
- Paris, France – (Amy)
- Portland, OR, USA – (Heather)
- Singapore – (Lash)
- Shanghai, China – (Lauren)
- Viareggio, Italy – (Marie)
- Luang Prabang, Laos – (Gretchen)
- New Smyrna Beach, FL, USA – (Gwen)
- San Sebastian, Spain – (Lorraine)
- Ashgabat, Turkmenistan – (Farial)
- Banos de Agua Santa, Ecuador – (Manola)
- Buenos Aires, Argentina – (Walter)
- Cusco, Peru – (Carolyn)
- Kampala, Uganda – (Benson)
- Venice, Italy – (Carmen)
- Sibiu, Romania – (Beniamin)
- Freiburg, Germany – (Vatsal)
- Izmir, Turkey – (Natalie)
- Cape Town, South Africa – (Nicole)
- New York City, NY, USA – (Anil)
- Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates – (Jane)
- Alba Iulia, Romania – (Oana)
- St. Petersburg, Russia – (Mike)
One of the biggest annual controversies of The Best City To Visit Travel Tournament revolves around what constitutes a “city” – in case you have any doubt, let me clear up the question – what is a city?
Important Contest Dates
The Best City To Visit Travel Tournament 2014 runs right into the beginning of April with several quick voting rounds starting on Tuesday, March 4th. Next week, I’ll be writing about some of the best ways to put your city in a position to win the contest but based on the past 5 years I can tell you staying on top of the early rounds is important. They’re the easiest – and hardest – rounds to make or break. Below are the dates to keep in mind.
- Tuesday, March 4th: Preliminary Round
- Thursday March 6th: Round of 64
- Tuesday March 11: Round of 32
- Thursday, March 13th: Sweet 16
- Tuesday, March 18th: Elite 8
- Tuesday March 24th: Final Four
- Tuesday, April 1st: Championship
The winner of this year’s tournament will be announced on Tuesday, April 8th and prize money sent to you by July 1, 2014. Those are quite a few dates to keep up with – the best way not to miss anything is to get my posts sent directly to your inbox.
Where Will You Send Me This Year?
I always visit the winning city before the year is up and have been fortunate to see the beating heart of optimism in Sibiu, photograph Sarajevo’s abandoned 1984 Winter Olympic track, plus set foot in Harry Potter’s Porto birthplace. Who knows where you’ll send me in 6 weeks from now although I’m sure it will be delightfully unexpected since any city large or small can win, in what annually turns out to be an unpredictable competition.
Goreme, Turkey
Jerusalem, Israel
Sighisoara, Romania
Berlin, Germany
Toronto, Canada
Uluwatu, Bali
St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada
London, England
Sucre, Bolivia
Manila, Philippines
Alba Iulia, Romania
Don’t worry, I’ve already got you listed above 🙂
Budapest, Hungary
The Rosslyn of Europe 😉
Kyoto, Japan
I’ve already got you in the list above 🙂
Montevideo, Uruguay
Sorry to miss the e-mail notice, Anil. I don’t see Edinburgh, so unless it’s hiding in comments waiting for moderation, that’s my first choice. If a second is needed .. I’ll nominate the “other Portland,” Portland, Maine.
No problem, you’re plenty in time and Edinburgh is all yours. Good luck!
Timisoara – Romania
Kotor, Montenegro
Auckland NZ
Porto, Portugal
Varanasi, India
I vote for New Orleans, Louisiana 🙂
Rio de Janiero
Sevilla spain
Antalya!
This year we want to bring you to Turkey.
🙂 Good luck!
Key West, FL
Hi Anil 🙂
I’d like to pick Lyon, France.
Cheers
Done!
Phnom Penh, Cambodia 🙂
Not seeing Mexico City, so I’m nominating it!
It’s all yours!
Hi Anil!
I vote for Bucharest – Romania. Let’s see how it goes this year 🙂
Good luck this year returning champ 🙂
Berlin, Germany – suprised, it not on the list yet!
Glad it is now though!
Hi Szabina, I apologize for this mistake but now approving some comments in moderation it appears I spoke too soon. Charles selected Berlin yesterday and I didn’t catch the selections in order.
Do you have an alternative city? Sorry again for the confusion…
My pick is Craiova, Romania! 😀
Montreal, Canada
Sofia, Bulgaria!
Havana—–Cuba……………..
Why not give it a try to Brasov (Romania), you’ll love it!
We’ll see in 6 weeks, good luck!
Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Groningen – Netherlands
Copenhagen, Denmark.
Hope its not taken
Nope, but it has now… by you! Good luck 🙂
I’ve gone for Beirut in the past and with Middle Eastern culture allied wih good cheese and wine see no reason to change my mind this year.
Perhaps this is your year, best of luck in the coming weeks.
Adventure capital of the world: Queenstown, NZ
Hi Anil, I vote for the city of Atlanta.
Ooh – I’d like to pick the fine city of Darjeeling please!
New York, New York it is!!!
Good luck this year, New York City is all yours.
Definitely Amman, Jordan! (Unless I already missed it on the list…)
You didn’t so Amman is yours, good luck!
Great! Sorry for posting twice…technical issues in Rome 🙂
No problem, it happens. I’ve deleted the duplicate.
I vote for Toronto, Canada! ;^)
It’s already been selected by someone a few days ago, do you have a second choice?
I nominate Negril, Jamaica!
I see Toronto was taken so I vote for my hometown Miami Beach, Florida!
Thanks Anil.
You’ve got it Ryan.
Cluj-Napoca Romania, definitely worth visiting Anil 🙂
And might be this year if you win 🙂 Can you please do me a favor though, email me a quick message? I believe the email you entered for this comment had an obvious typo and if so, I won’t be able to contact you in case you do win. Thanks.
This is my e-mail. [EDIT: removed]
Thank you, it turns out my hunch was correct, the other email you provided had a typo. I’ve now got the correct one and have removed your email above to save you from extra spam.
I vote for Bangkok, Thailand!
Vilnius, Lithuania! 🙂
Great city, I was just there a few days ago but wouldn’t mind a trip back. Good luck!
Caramoan, Camarines Sur 🙂 Such a beauty!<3
Caramoan, Naga City
Naga City, Philippines it is.
Is Charleston, South Carolina still available?
Yes… well, no… because it’s your pick now 😉
This award should be already given to Rio this year…what would be a better place this year then Rio during the copa do mundo..
It’s been entered and think you’re right, it has a lot of international momentum this year. Feel free to select another city to enter for yourself though if you would like to try and win the prize money.
I’d like to nominate Negril, Jamaica!
It’s yours! Good luck 🙂
Anil, I’d love to represent Porto, Portugal. I see that someone else already mentioned it in the comments, but don’t see it on the list, so if it’s available, I’d love to snag it.
If not, let’s go with Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Hi Travis, I was wondering if you’d be able to get a city in on time 😉 Porto is all yours – and as a former champion has had very good backing in the past.
Hi Trav,
Sorry I just realized this: Porto was already selected, despite what I said above, it somehow got past me. But (and I’m sure) Ljubljana is available – and it’s all yours.
Thanks…good luck to Porto, but here’s wishing better luck to Ljubljana!
Hi everyone – I wrote this post yesterday which talks about some of the effective strategies previous Best City to Visit winners have used and can help you too:
http://foxnomad.com/2014/02/27/effective-strategies-can-learn-use-win-best-city-visit-travel-tournament/
I don’t see this like a competition. You talked about voting, but where is it? And I don’t see any city got significant voting. *confused*
What are you confused by? Voting takes place throughout March and part of April:
http://foxnomad.com/category/site-news/contests/