Who wouldn’t want to take a long trip around the world? Seeing the sights, visiting the destinations and picking up fun treasures and souvenirs along the way-this would be a dream trip! Today we are going to take a look at a game that will allow you to do just that as we explore the world together!
Trekking the World is a 2-5 player game from Underdog Games. It is designed by Charlie Bink and illustrated by Alexey Shirokikh and Marta Danecka.
Overview
Players compete to race around the world and visit some of the most popular destinations around. To win you must move around the map and prove you are the best traveler!
Gameplay
Players will each start with one trekker and the mat in their chosen color. Each player picks an airport to start in at the beginning of the game. Souvenir cubes are placed at each location on the map and the regional bonus tokens are placed randomly at each of the six areas. A row of Destination cards are placed off of the deck to form four to select from. The tray with the 3/5 VP tokens is placed above the two rightmost cards. A pair of Journey cards are placed on the log on the map as well.
Each player is given 3 Trek cards to begin with the others are placed near the board with 4 face-up next to the face-down deck. Now everything is ready to begin your adventure into Trekking!
Each player takes their turn in clockwise order around the board, with a players turn consisting of two phases that must be done in order:
- Move
- Choose an action
In Move, players must discard one or more of their trek cards from their hand to move to another location. The cards only look at the numbers on them, and you must move the exact number of what you discard in spaces. If you start with no cards you skip this step and immediately move to the draw part of phase two.
Sometimes players will begin their turn in an airport, if so you may fly to any other open airport as your turn. This will only happen at the beginning of a turn and it only happens if you start in an Airport.
When you move and land on a location with a souvenir cube you take it and add it to your suitcase. Once you have acquired at least two of one type you gain the most of that type tile. Someone can take it from you once they have one more than you and it can move around in possession throughout the game.
If you collect the last souvenir from a region you collect the Region Bonus tile as well which will be worth bonus VP at the end of the game. You may keep this secret from other players.
After you complete the Move phase you move to the Choose phase where you will either Draw Two cards, Take a Tour or Journey.
In Draw Two, players will take two Trek cards and add them to their hand. There is no limit to the amount of cards you can have in your hand, and the cards are replaced as you pick one. You may also draw one from the face-down stack next to the row of cards.
Take a Tour allows players to tour one of the four destination cards face-up in the row of cards. To do so you must have your Trekker at that location on the map and have the matching cards with icons on them in your hand for that location. After one is taken, all the cards slide down and a new location is revealed. The bonus tokens are taken for extra VP for the must-see locations on the map.
Finally you may also take a Journey where you can activate one of the Journey cards in the Log. Discard any two cards with matching icons and then take the action listed on the card.
The end of the game is triggered when the 5th of six Region Bonus tokens are taken or when a player tours their fifth Destination card. When one of these things happen the player who triggered the end of the game finishes their turn and the game ends. Final scoring looks at all the VP acquired and totals them up to determine the winner!
Impressions
What could be better:
Gaining cards. I often felt like I would get stuck with a few turns that were moving too slow if i didn’t have the right cards to get somewhere. A lot of that is getting the correct movement cards and matching icon cards for the Destination you are trying to claim but often I felt a turn or two behind another player who got ideal cards.
Travel. I really wanted to move through people and on to the same spots they were on, so much that we had some turns on the higher player counts where players felt stuck not being able to go anywhere. Although it didn’t happen every time it could still be a but frustrating when you are trying to move through an area.
What I liked:
Art. The game is beautiful and all of the locations and detail in them is wonderful. They did an excellent job on production making the cards really pop off of the cardboard and give you that fun feeling of traveling around to the exotic locales.
Storage. Once again Gametrayz comes in like a champ to make some of the best storage in gaming. I love the design and ease of their storage solution for this game. Never disappointing, Gametrayz is a wonderful addition to this box.
Overall
Trekking the World gives you an adventure on the table that is one you are definitely going to enjoy with the family as you jet-set around the world from destination to destination. The game is very smooth and easy to follow as you play out your turns, I found this to be a game all ages and experience levels will likely latch onto very easily.
As mention previously, the design team from the art to the components to the storage all hit a home run with this game. It is easy to set up and play which in a world of limited time is greatly appreciated. I can see younger children really enjoying this as well as older ones. The fun facts on each Destination card is a nice small added touch as well that I appreciate.
If you are looking for a way to travel around the world at your own dinning room table look no further-Trekking the World is an adventure in gaming that you will really enjoy. Make sure to get out and explore the beautiful locations in this one soon!
This one looks like fun. I’ve played trekking the national parks and it was enjoyable.
Both are a lot of fun!