Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is happening now! Follow us as Greg, Nick, and Stephen compete to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines before November 23rd. Who will complete the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
The StayCayToFarAway contest has been a blast. As a reminder, the Frequent Miler team has been competing against each other in a series of four challenges: Destination Cooking, Travel Themed Life Hack, Imitation Travel, and Improv Travel. For each challenge, our task was to create a short video and accompanying post. The results have been fantastic… mostly. Seriously, most of the videos turned out better than I had hoped. But, fortunately for this post, there were plenty of bad, disgusting, and cringeworthy moments too.
While final votes weren’t yet counted at the time of publication, it was fun to look back at all of the contest entries to point out the worst of the worst. Now, without further ado, here are the worst, most cringeworthy, and grossest moments from #StayCayToFarAway…
Most Disgusting
Winner: Greg’s Underwear
This one was too gross to publish as a picture here. If you want to see my underwear (who wouldn’t?) there’s only one place to go: watch my Hotel Survival Hacks video which shows (among other things) how best to protect your valuables in a hotel room. This video is guaranteed to make you laugh (if you’re a 7 year old boy).
Runner up #1: Carrie’s Allergic Face
Carrie’s Travel Lifehack video shows a simple way to ensure that you’re always prepared for an allergic reaction. The video also shows what happens to Carrie’s face when unprepared. You’ve been warned.
Runner up #2: Stephen’s Heart-Attack Burger
Stephen’s Full English Breakfast Donut Burger arguably should be referred to as a heart-attack burger. My wife thought it was gross. I thought it looked fantastic… except for the donut bun. Watch the video and then read the post to learn about places you can get your own donut burger if you’re into eating unhealthy, but not into cooking.
Most Gratuitous Use of Family Members
Winner: Reyes University
Nick’s Travel Lifehack video shows how to protect yourself when traveling. The first half of the video, though, is a mostly unrelated (but fun to watch) investigation into “Reyes University.” Here, Nick took full advantage of his adorable family to earn a few likes. Yes, it’s a blatant gratuitous use of family members, but it works. Nick gets extra credit for creating a Frequent Miler branded microphone.
Runner up #1: Stephen’s Talking Dog
Truffles steals the show as “Barky McFly” in Stephen’s Imitation Travel video.
Runner up #2: Carrie’s Baking Sister
In Carrie’s Destination Cooking video, she brought her sister into the act to help her prepare three different Mochi ice cream recipes. They nailed it.
Runner up #3: Greg’s Branson Son
In Greg’s Imitation Travel Video (Return to Necker Island!), his son was made up to look like Richard Branson. See if you can tell the difference.
Most Cringeworthy Moment
Winner: Stephen’s Elephant Monkey
Elephant. That’s what Stephen said when he saw this monkey on Nick’s wife’s head. Elephant.
I get it. Improv is really hard to do. We all make silly mistakes, especially under time pressure (as was required in the Improv Travel challenge). But.. elephant?
Think I’m being too harsh? Watch the video and give Stephen a thumbs up to make him feel better about his boss teasing him.
Runner up #1: Greg’s Underwear
My gross underwear in my Travel Lifehack video already won the Most Disgusting award, so I couldn’t really give myself a second win here. But don’t doubt the moment’s cringeworthy-ness. Oh, it’s cringeworthy for sure.
Runner up #2: Nick’s Ruined Table
Nick proves that his self-defense Travel Lifehack really works. His nice wooden table will never attack anyone again. Don’t tell his wife.
Parental Guidance Most Needed (PG Award)
Winner: Stephen’s Burger
All but two of the videos in the StayCayToFarAway series are perfectly fine for kids to watch. The parental problem with Stephen’s Destination Cooking video isn’t the worry that kids might try to eat something like this (but I’d understand that concern), but rather something Stephen’s wife said in response to Stephen wondering if he’d be able to get the whole thing into his mouth.
Runner up #1: Branson’s Middle Finger
If you don’t want to have to explain the middle finger gesture to your kids, then keep them away from both my Imitation Travel video and Post. Both show Richard Branson giving me the middle finger, and both show my son (made up to look like Richard Branson) giving me the middle finger. What better way was there to recreate the trip of a lifetime other than to recreate that wonderful moment?
Most Underrated Video
Winner: Carrie’s Improv Travel
For the most part, I wasn’t a fan of Improv Travel Challenge. In my opinion, most of us did just OK. I was hoping for funnier results. But Carrie’s Improv Travel Video was great. I laughed out loud many times. Somehow, though, Carrie’s video has earned fewer “likes” than any of the other Improv Videos in this challenge (at least at the time of my writing this). How can that be?
Help fix this grave error. Watch the video and give it a thumbs-up. Then go watch some of Stephen’s videos and give them thumbs-ups because he created the background that made Carrie’s video so good.
Here are the Improv Travel Tallies at the time of this writing:
- Greg’s smoking coconuts (Video w/ 76 likes)
- Nick’s skating through Iceland (Video w/ 44 likes)
- Stephen’s Soapbox Derby (Video w/ 25 likes)
- Carrie’s Dream-like Wedding (Video w/ 22 likes)
Greg’s Research Notes
My original plan for this post was to honestly review all 16 videos and to declare my favorites and least favorites in each category. To prepare for that, I re-watched all 16 videos and re-read all 16 accompanying posts and I took notes along the way.
In the end, of course, I changed the focus of this post, but I think that my notes are interesting and informative in themselves. Notes are listed in reverse order of publication. For example, Nick’s cooking video was the first of the cooking videos to be published, so it is the last one listed in the notes under that section.
Cooking video notes
- Greg’s Everything Bagel!
- Carrie’s Mochi…Nailed It!
- Stephen’s Full English Breakfast Donut Burger
- Video: I was actually salivating at how delicious the burger looked. Stephen looked very comfortable in front of the camera. Delicious and disgusting all in one! Fun scene with Stephen eating with giant serving utensils.
- Post: Strangely fascinating. It’s interesting to read a Britt’s view of what makes for good food. And I really liked his bean confession!
- Nick’s Homemade Pasta + Orange Cream Sauce
Travel Lifehack Notes
- Nick’s Welcome to Reyes University (Travel Self-Defense)
- Greg’s Hotel Survival Hacks (Cut the Cheese)
- Carrie’s Never be unprepared for an allergic reaction again…
- Stephen’s Portable Kitchen
Imitation Travel Notes
- Stephen’s Imitation (Time) Travel With Barky McFly
- Nick’s Big Island or Big Fail?
- Greg’s Return to Necker Island!
- Carrie’s Gator-Ade Art Project
Improv Travel Notes
- Carrie’s Dream-like Wedding
- Stephen’s Soapbox Derby
- Nick’s skating through Iceland
- Greg’s smoking coconuts
Category championship
Keep in mind that category champions (e.g. “Destination Cooking” champ, “Improv Travel” champ, etc) were decided by Youtube likes.
Destination Cooking Winner: Nick
Each contestant created a mini cooking show demonstrating how to prepare some kind of food from someplace in the world.- Nick's Homemade Pasta (Video w/ 119 likes) (Post)
- Stephen's Full English Breakfast Donut Burger (Video w/ 73 likes) (Post)
- Carrie's Mochi…Nailed It! (Video w/ 68 likes) (Post)
- Greg's Everything Bagel! (Video w/ 52 likes) (Post)
Travel Lifehack Winner: Greg
Each contestant created a video showing off one or more life hacks that relate to travel.- Greg's Hotel Survival Hacks (Cut the Cheese) (Video w/ 117 likes) (Post)
- Carrie's Always prepared for an allergic reaction (Video w/ 105 likes) (Post)
- Nick's Travel Self-Defense (Video w/ 81 likes) (Post)
- Stephen’s Portable Kitchen (Video w/ 80 likes) (Post)
Imitation Travel Winner: Greg
Each contestant created a video showing off a destination, but without using real photos or videos of that location.- Greg's Return to Necker Island! (Video w/ 121 likes) (Post)
- Stephen's Time Travel With Barky McFly (Video w/ 81 likes) (Post)
- Carrie's Gator-Ade Art Project (Video w/ 59 likes) (Post)
- Nick's Big Island or Big Fail? (Video w/ 49 likes) (Post)
Improv Travel Winner: Greg
Each contestant received a video tour of a real destination assembled by another team member from their real travel photos and videos. The contestant didn’t know what the footage was until they started recording with their face in front. The goal was to create an improv tour of that destination.- Greg's smoking coconuts (Video w/ 78 likes) (Post)
- Nick's skating through Iceland (Video w/ 47 likes) (Post)
- Carrie's Dream-like Wedding (Video w/ 32 likes) (Post)
- Stephen's Soapbox Derby (Video w/ 27 likes) (Post)
[…] case you missed it my earlier publication of these awards, here you go […]
[…] Before you vote, though, consider the accusations that have been thrown Nick’s way. Nick has been publicly accused of breaking child labor laws. At minimum, his use of his son and other family members is a blatant case of shameless pandering. […]
Stephen’s the winner for me. I have him winning the destination cooking and imitation travel categories, plus he gets bonus points for creating the best improv slide show. I loved the british-american heart attack burger, and laughed during the progression of him eating it with the towel and cooking utensils. I also thought Barky McFly was a really creative and well done segment that stood out. I would actually give Greg the nod for the travel lifehack because the shoes in the shower cap move is clutch, and I could see myself finding the string cutting technique useful in a pinch at some point. Stephen’s travel kitchen was second for me. I agree that the improv didn’t turn out as well as hoped, so I’m giving that a draw across the board, but I thought Stephen came up with the most creative improv challenge (poor Carrie!). He gets bonus points for including Dog Chapel and the beautiful art of Stephen Huneck in his slideshow.
Thanks for the COVID relief! It was fun watching all the videos. I’ll be sure to check out the last few pleas, but I don’t think I can be swayed from Stephen as the winner!
[…] example, Greg claimed yesterday that the video for my full English breakfast donut burger needed parental guidance. That was due to […]
[…] The StayCayToFarAway contest has been a blast. As a reminder, the Frequent Miler team has been competing against each other in a series of four challenges: Destination Cooking, Travel Themed Life Hack, Imitation Travel, and Improv Travel. For each challenge… contine reading… […]