Well unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will know that I entered the global tourism competition that My Destination is running. Voting closed over a week ago, and now I’m playing the fun game of “try-not-to-think-about-it-else-you’ll-get-no-work-done”.
I’ve been winning at this game till now, three days out from the finalists being announced. Now my stomach is fluttering with butterflies in anticipation at the impeding announcement! To make me even more anxious, New Zealand is 12 hours ahead of London (Where MyD’s HQ is), so even when the 15th April roles round here, it’ll probably be a whole day later that I finally find out if I’ve made it into the final round. I’m guessing they’ll announce it on their Facebook page.
The top 10 finalists were going to go into a second round of voting, but then the fluffy bunnies at My Destination decided to make things a bit more interesting by announcing the top 10 finalists will all be flown to London for a mini-bucketlist week! We haven’t been told much about this week, but I’m think they’re going to be trialling peoples blogging/videoing/photography skills in a week jammed with activities and challenges in London! But then that got me thinking, on my trip to Europe last year (where I blogged, photographed and videoed our travels) we ticked nearly every London bucket list item in just 3 days (little sleep & 12hr days) so maybe the mini-bucketlist week wont just be based in London? Who knows!
They were also going to choose the top 10 by selecting the top 5 on votes, and then choosing 5 they really liked. After a lot of people scammed and paid for votes (some had over 30,000!) MyD decided not to put as much weight on the votes. After all, they want someone who’s awesome at creating engaging content while they’re on their 6 months round the world trip, and not someone that just knows how to buy votes.
The highlight of the campaign for me, was meeting John Key (NZ’s prime minister) and talking to him about the competition. As he’s also the Tourism Minister I took it upon myself to write him a letter, knowing I would be meeting him at the NEC Wellington Launch, and gave it to him in person. Read a copy of the cheesy letter here.
I’m hopeful I’ll at least make it through to the top 10 finalists, given my full time profession is photography & film-making for Brady Dyer Photography, and blogging, social marketing & web design for Web Boutique I’d say I’m pretty well fit for the job. No fancy film crew needed here, just give me my DSLR (stills+ HD video), GoPro Hero3 (for those extreme moments), MacBookPro (editing), and a map – and drop me anywhere! (What other gear would I take? Glad you asked) I’ll make you feel like you’re perched right on my shoulder every step of the journey. You little parrot you! Cracker?
I’ll leave you with some interesting infographics My Destination made from the answers people gave during the entry stage.
