.Zickie. (flickr)

The $500 Getaway Contest is a contest I have decided to put together as a way to share regional travel expertise among all members of the traveling community.

Unfortunately, most people have to balance their passion for travel with other responsibilities like work and family life. This means that extended long-term travel just isn’t much of an option, and that they must make due with the 2-4 weeks of vacation they are allotted each year to appease the voracious “travel bug”.

That is why I have decided to put together this contest, as a way for experts around the globe to share their destination specific knowledge with short-term travelers looking for interesting and inexpensive, short-term getaways.

Prize:

The winner of the contest will be awarded $500 USD, in the hopes they will use that money to take advantage of one of the $500 Getaways (however it is up to them what they actually use the money for.

Payment will be made through Paypal.com

Other benefits:

Aside from the $500 prize to the eventual winner, this contest is a good opportunity for travel bloggers, tour operators, and other travel enthusiasts to show off their favorite corners of the globe. Related links to personal blogs and websites are encouraged, and will likely yield high amounts of traffic.

Upon completion of the contest, all travelers will have an extensive list of exciting and inexpensive “getaways” that they can reference to plan upcoming vacations and world trips.

How to Enter:

A contest entry involves writing up a short description of an interesting “getaway” to anywhere in the world that costs under $500 (NOT including airfare). The getaway must be for a minimum of 5 days, and cannot include any inappropriate, illegal, or unethical activities (I’m talking about really bad stuff. Gambling, cock-fights, etc. are fine with me).

The description must include the following (Example Submission):

1. Original Title
2. Destination
3. Time
4. Cost not including airfare (must be under $500 USD)
5. Total cost including sample airfare from New York, Miami, Los Angeles, London, Sydney (please use dates from June 2008 for sample airfares)
6. Short Description (max. 100 words)
7. Daily Itinerary (including cost break-down for each day)
8. Any extra or important information you want to include.
9. Optional but recommended: 1 original or properly referenced photo related to the “getaway”.
10. Optional but recommended: Links to any related content on the web. These can be back to your site or blog, or anywhere else related to the “getaway”.

***Please send all contest entries to GoBudgetTravelGetaways@gmail.com

Important Submission Information

• Format should follow as closely as possible to this sample entry: Ecuador Budget Travel: Andean Peaks
• If possible, please follow the html format given below the sample page: Ecuador Budget Travel: Andean Peaks
• If you are unfamiliar or confused by this html format, please just send the necessary information in the body of your entry email, with photos included as an attachment (please note that this will delay posting of your entry, as I will need to format it personally in html).
• By entering in this contest you are giving all content rights to GoBudgetTravel.com, and guarantee that submitted content is not and never will be duplicated online or in print format.

How to win:

Once your entry has been received I will post it to GoBudgetTravel.com on the page $500 Getaways.

From that point on, visitors to the site will be able to vote for their favorite “getaways”. The entry that accrues the most votes by October 31 at 5pm EDT will win the contest.

In the event of a tie, top entries will be entered into a drawing, and the ultimate winner will be chosen at random.

This contest will last a little under 6 weeks, so there is plenty of time to get your submissions entered. However, due to the nature of the contest, the first submissions will have the longest period of time to accrue votes giving them a better chance of winning. So, don’t wait too long before submitting.

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