AAA High School Travel Challenge

Want to test your travel literacy? Try the Triple A Travel Challenge, a three stage competition awarding ninth-12th grade high schoolers over $100,000 in college scholarship prizes. The challenge, which starts January 9, is all about tourist destinations and is open to public, private or home schooled students with a yen for travel and a head for geography.

Registration for the AAA High School Travel Challenge began November 1 -- student travel whizzes wanting to compete should sign up soon and take the online practice quiz.

According to AAA, most questions will concern American tourism destinations like Florida or England; a sample question: "Which Florida city is most associated with major theme parks?" AAA writes that there will be no crazy questions like: "Which African country is a major producer of ground nuts?" (It happens to be Burkina Faso.) There *will* be a few, more general, questions about remote or exotic tourism spots.

The first competition takes place online between January 9 and 17 -- top five state (and District of Columbia) scorers move on to the next round in March.

The 255 phase one winners will take a written exam March 7-9; top scorers from each state take the titles of state champs and travel for free to the national competetition in Orlando May 13-16. At those finals, one winner is crowned AAA Travel Challenge champ -- all participants will learn plenty about possible travel careers.

Check out the AAA High School Travel Challenge FAQ, put on your thinking chapeau and give the practice quiz a shot. You have thousands of dollars to gain and nothing to lose!