Visit California X Race Across California

We created Race Across California, a first-of-its-kind, self-drive fam inspired by Race Across the World. Instead of a guided itinerary, agents travelled in small teams, navigating the state on their own, earning points through challenges, checkpoints and surprise tasks, all hosted in the Vamoos Travel App.

Across five European markets, participants explored cities, coastlines, deserts, parks, culinary highlights and hidden gems, experiencing California the way their clients will. Strategic partnerships with flight partners, trade media and California DMOs amplified the initiative across paid, earned and owned channels. The result was a high-energy mix of competition, collaboration and discovery that generated buzz across the trade and gave agents a practical, first-hand understanding of how to sell California’s road-trip experiences.

Race Across California redefined what a fam trip can be. The competitive, self-navigated format delivered deeper destination knowledge, stronger agent confidence and far more authentic insights than any standard itinerary could offer.

The campaign achieved pan-European visibility, strong partner alignment and high application demand across the UK & Ireland, Germany, Italy and France. Participants returned as powerful brand advocates, able to advise on routing, pacing, upsells and how to craft “Ultimate Playground” itineraries that clients can’t get anywhere else.

Most importantly, the project delivered a scalable, future-ready fam model that strengthens California’s relevance, inspires trade audiences, and creates long-term conversion opportunities across priority European markets.