With my trip to Marrakesh, I got lucky in a lot of ways. One of those unexpected ways was that world travelers extraordinaire Lara Dunston and Terrance Carter were in Marrakesh (and Essaouira) just a week before I arrived. While our paths aren’t set to cross until April when they make their way through Paris as part of their new project, Gran Tourismo, I still benefited from reading about their experiences. The project has these professional travel and guidebook writers turning in their hotel keys for homestays around the world. The year-long adventure is sponsored by HomeAway holiday-rentals, and is documented on their blog, Gran Tourismo. The blog strives to capture the experience of travels in ways such as creating playlists, examining the cost of living through convenient comparison shopping lists, local recipes, the quest for local knowledge in each destination. It’s the kind of stuff you wished showed up in guidebooks, but doesn’t.

Now the fun comes and you have the opportunity to win your own excuse to travel. This month’s competition invites you to:
create an inspiring blog post, consisting of a 500-word piece of evocative travel writing and one compelling photograph that motivates people to:

• explore more authentic and enriching ways to travel
• get beneath sthe skin of a place when they travel
• learn to live like locals
• travel more slowly and more sustainably, and/or
• give something back to the places they visit.

Click here for more details on how you can enter. My submission will be up in the next couple days, so stay tuned. [Deadline is March 28th].

{images by Terrance Carter for Gran Tourismo}