Grantourismo Travel Blogging Competition: July

[caption id="attachment_4778" align="aligncenter" width="380" caption=" "][/caption] We’re excited to be announcing the fifth contest in our yearlong series of monthly Grantourismo travel blogging competitions. This month, we’re inviting you to produce an inspiring blog post comprised of one (1) stunning photograph* that captures the spirit and colour of a local festival and 250 words* that describe the event and why it affected you. Your local festival could be cultural or social, exuberant or somber, celebratory or serious, religious or spiritual, gay or straight, an art or music event... you name it, anything festive should fit the category. In your 250 words try to communicate what your image doesn’t show us: what it is, why and where it’s held, when it’s on, why you were there, and how you felt. If your post also touches on some of our other themes, and motivates people to explore more authentic and enriching ways to travel, get beneath the skin of a place when they travel, learn to live like locals, and travel more slowly and more sustainably, then that’s great too. It’s important that your story and photograph must be your own, they must be original, they should derive from a firsthand travel experience you’ve had, and they should not have been published elsewhere. *Make sure you do not submit more than 250 words and you only post one (1) photograph, otherwise your entry will be disqualified. FIRST PRIZES A stay at a HomeAway Holiday-Rentals property of your choice anywhere in the world valued at UK£500/US$750, a Context tour voucher worth US$100, and an Olympus FE-4040 compact camera worth £125/US$190. SECOND PRIZE a Viator tour voucher worth £100/US$150 and a private half-day tour with a local guide in a destination of your choice anywhere in the world from Our Explorer. THIRD PRIZE an annual subscription to AFAR magazine. The winning entry will be featured on Grantourismo, HomeAway UK’s Facebook page, and we, HomeAwayUK, Viator and Context will tweet your success on Twitter. To be eligible to enter Entry submission is by posting and linking, and communication is through the Comments below and by Twitter, which means: 1. You must have your own blog/site, contribute to a group blogging site, or post to travel sites like www.matadortravel.com, www.bootsnall.com, www.travellerspoint.com,www.travelpod.com 2. You need to subscribe to Grantourismo via email/RSS, join our community on Google Friend Connect (sign up from http://grantourismotravels.com/ not from this post’s URL as it will not work); and join HomeAway Holiday Rental’s Facebook page to enter. 3. You need to follow @Gran_tourismo and @HomeAwayUK on Twitter, then alert us on Twitter that you’re following us for the #GrantourismoComp and we will follow you back. How to enter 1. Upload your original entry to your blog before end of 31 July. The sooner you do it the better it is for you, because we’ll visit your site to read your post, tweet about the entries, and other entrants will also visit your blog for inspiration. 2. Identify at the beginning or end of your post that “This post has been entered into the Grantourismo and HomeAway Holiday-Rentals travel blogging competition” and link to this post (so your entry appears in the Trackbacks below) and www.homeaway.co.uk. Tag the post with ‘Grantourismo’ and ‘HomeAway Holiday-Rentals’ so we and others can easily search for it. 3. Leave your name and link to your post in the Comments below – this serves as your submission. If there is no obvious way for us to contact you to notify you if you’ve won, then please leave your Twitter address below. 4. Tweet us on Twitter @Gran_tourismo and @HomeAwayUK to tell us your post is up, using#GrantourismoComp in your tweet, which makes it easy for others to find your entry also. 5. Encourage your blog readers and followers on Twitter to engage and re-tweet your entry post. We’re keen to hear their thoughts. Winning Entries 1.We will notify winners by Twitter or email by 3 August. 2.Winners will be required to email us their photograph and blog post for publishing. 3.The winning entry will be posted soon after 4 August. For more details, read the fine print below. If you have any questions, pop them in the Comments below. The Fine Print – Terms and Conditions 1. Grantourismo monthly competitions are open to anyone aged 18 years or over except anyone professionally associated with this competition or the sponsors. 2. All information detailing how to enter the competitions forms part of these terms and conditions. It is a condition of entry that all rules are accepted as final and that the competitor agrees to abide by these rules. Submission of an entry will be taken to mean acceptance of these terms and conditions. 3. Submissions must be original, should not have been published before, should not appear on other blogs or websites, and should not infringe any copyrights. 4. Winners will be chosen by a judging panel consisting of HomeAway Holiday-Rentals staff; Scott McNeeley, Editor of the Viator blog; Context Travel staff; and Lara Dunston and Terence Carter. Judges decisions are final. The criteria used will include creativity, originality and quality of writing and photography, ability to engage an audience, and ability to inspire. 5. HomeAway Holiday-Rentals is offering a prize of £500/US$750 towards a stay in one of their properties listed on the HomeAway Holiday-Rentals website. The stay must be a minimum of 2 nights, although can be longer. The winner must use http://www.homeaway.co.uk/ to book the property. HomeAway Holiday-Rentals will release the funds to the property owner and transfer the remainder to the winner to be used toward the trip. 6. Winners will be required to write about their prizes on their blogs, link back to Grantourismo, HomeAway Holiday-Rentals, and the prize sponsor(s) above, and tweet about the post, using #GrantourismoComp. 7.Property stays and tours must be used within 12 months of notification. 8. While copyright of all submissions to the Competition remains with the entrants, winning entrant grants worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual licence to Grantourismo, HomeAway Holiday-Rentals and the sponsors to feature the winning entries on their websites, blogs, or in any publications or promotional materials connected to this Competition.