- What does one get out of joining us?
A reason, even an excuse to start traveling. The push to get out of your home and your comfort zone. It is the chance for you to make an year in your life truly memorable. A year when you pursued a goal bigger than yourself. It is also the motivation to learn about your own heritage which UNESCO considers to be of importance to humanity itself!
The prizes for winning are not guaranteed and they are not the incentive either, but the recognition is. To win a Travel Challenge is a badge of honor in itself. Past winners have also received extensive coverage in the press and media.
- Travel is expensive, how do you expect me to spend so much money?
We don’t, and travel does not need to be expensive. Here’s an itinerary which you can use to travel to most world heritage sites in India by train. And train travel in India is really quite cheap. Similarly, for your country, there will be cheaper ways to travel. You just have to plan and research a little bit. And if you find a good way, do share in a post on the website!
- I work a full time job, how should I travel?
Where there is will, there is a way.
The past winners of India Challenges have all worked in full time jobs, they still managed to travel to at least 24 world heritage sites in India. This is quite an achievement considering that these sites were spread across an entire sub-continent! In their experience, a little bit of planning goes a long way. For example, you have 52 weekends in a year – and no country in the world has more than 53 world heritage sites (Italy, which has the most number of world heritage sites – 49). You could probably win a challenge, by traveling just on weekends!
- How do I join a Travel Challenge?
Go to the Challenges page, click on any of the ones listed under ‘Open Challenges’ and click ‘Join Challenge’ on the top right corner of the page.
Everyone is enrolled into The Epic Challenge�and The Culture Challenge by default.
- How do I participate in any of the challenges?
Each challenge can have its own rules, but one rule is common across all – you have to post your picture at a world heritage site as proof. If there are any additional rules for a challenge, they will be listed in the Challenge page.
- Do I have to be in the picture I post on the website?
We would prefer that, however we do understand that this may be tough for solo travelers. So we go by faith that the photo you posted by you is one you took or have all rights to it.
- How do you verify that a photo posted by someone was actually taken in the year of the challenge to which it was posted?
Frankly, there is no easy way to do this. The EXIF information is lost when any editing is done on a photograph. So we go by faith and trust you to do the right thing.
- Will my photo get posted immediately on the website?
No, all posts are moderated to ensure that offensive material is not posted. This also ensures that bots, which sometimes get through the sign up safeguards are not allowed to post spam. It is very rare for a post to be rejected (one grounds for rejection is if there is no photo at all or if a link is posted to a photo that is not publicly accessible).
- How are points calculated and updated?
When a post is published, the points allocated to the connected world heritage site get added to your score. Currently, every world heritage site is assigned 100 points. If you add any information from your travel which will be helpful to other folk traveling here, you will earn additional points. Please watch here for the latest rules.
- Who supports/funds us?
Currently (February 2015) Go Heritage Runs fund all global�programs of GoUNESCO.�Please check the About page for more�details.
- How many people are employed by us?
Please check our team details.
- Why did you start this?
Here’s the story behind our journey.