Scavenger Hunt for Adults Planned as Exotic Quest Around the Globe

A former political activist turned travel entrepreneur has given a traditional kid’s party game an adventurous adult twist.

For a mere $5,300 per player, well-heeled globe-trotters can take part in Jonathan Bassan’s international scavenger hunt, jetting to such exotic locales as Bali to pick up a sarong or to Fatima, say, for a vial of holy water.

If the chance to visit far-flung corners of the planet and pit your travel wiles against other adventurers is not enticement enough, the first pair back to the starting line will receive $25,000. Second place will get $15,000 and third place $7,500.

Bassan believes the game, dubbed the HumanRace, provides novice wayfarers with an inexpensive introduction to world travel and jaded veterans with a new wrinkle.

“They get a real interesting travel experience,” Bassan said. “They get a cultural experience. They get an adventure. They get the thrill of participating in a first-time event and they get a chance, if they win, as Andy Warhol said, to get their 15 minutes of fame.”

In addition to an active wanderlust, players must possess a talent for logistics, the athletic conditioning to climb Alpine mountains and the daring to race camels through the desert, Bassan said.

“This is not a vacation. People call in and I talk with them. I try to get a sense of who they are because if they just want a vacation I tell them to go to Indonesia and hang out on a beach in Bali,” he said.

Bassan is keeping details of the itinerary secret until the start of the race, but participants will travel to at least eight nations in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

“That prevents any team from planning ahead and getting an unfair advantage and that maintains the mystery of the event,” he said.

A political activist while a student at UCLA in the mid-1960s, Bassan was at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles when Robert Kennedy was shot.

He later started a photography business, but sold it in 1975 to embark on a two-month world tour. That voyage evolved into a three-year sojourn and for the subsequent three years he ran a primitive-art importing firm, permitting him frequent trips overseas.

But when he started a family in 1981--he met his wife in Bali in 1977--he turned his attention to something closer to home: real estate. Grounded, he began to miss the adventure and romance of mingling with other cultures.

The idea for a global challenge first came to him eight years ago, but it languished until last year.

“It was always kind of in the back of my mind as a fun thing,” he said, “but seven or eight months ago I woke up and said I’m sick of this. I’m tired of real estate brokers, bankers, lawyers. I like to travel.”

The scavenger hunt, with between 30 and 50 teams taking part, will begin Oct. 28 and end 72 hours after the third-place pair finishes.

In each country, Bassan has created an adventure that will take two to three days by local transportation. The entire contest should last about 3 1/2 weeks.

Arrangements will be made ahead of time with hotel chains and national airlines, but the competitors--outfitted with I.D. cards and voucher books--will have to decide for themselves which country to fly to next and figure out how to get around on local trains and buses.

“I’m organizing the race, but what I’m really trying to do is give them a cultural experience,” he said. “Just the trip to the local train station is an experience in itself in some of these countries.

“I want to give them a sense of mankind living in various places in the world. Just as ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ was a race, it was a cultural experience. Phileas Fogg was always talking about the people around the world he met.”

Bassan hopes the HumanRace will become an annual event and is negotiating for television coverage of the contest.

Despite only minimal advertising, word of the competition has spread rapidly. Bassan said he has had inquiries from hundreds of people--some from as far away as Scandinavia and Japan--and 17 have already signed on.

Most participants fall between the ages of 25 and 40, but one team pairs a 64-year-old North Dakota doctor with a 68-year-old Minnesota engineer.

“The typical profile is a person who likes adventure, likes challenge, is independent and has the ability to take off for three or four weeks, a lot of professionals, small business owners,” he said.

And where will Bassan be when the hunt begins? At home taking care of business, of course.

“In a certain sense it’s ironic,” Bassan said wistfully. “I’ll be right here in my office. I thought about it, how much fun it would be to take part. (But) it’s hard to conceive of 60 or a 100 people running around the world without problems” that need his attention.