How To Tell Your Story - Reality TV Travel Adventure Sample

As you consider submitting a story for consideration, please keep in mind the following fundamental guidelines:

1. Travel is incidental to the human story (remember that just like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, the house is the backdrop for the human story) so, there are thousands of great backdrops around which the human stories can be told.  If you’ve watched The Bachelor this season, it’s the same kind of approach, the romance and relationship stories are told with Costa Rica and Anguilla as the beautiful backdrop.  When the Bachelor and the women travel, it could be to anywhere, but the real interest is in the human stories of relationship building, relationship confusion, relationship interference, emotional back-stories, etc.  One woman’s fear of large bugs, another woman’s fear of heights, another woman’s fear of intimacy and another woman’s jealous streak.  Remember to focus on sharing your human story.
2. Stories have to have an emotional connection.  What is your personal emotional connection? Do you have a secret about your personal emotional makeup that you’re hoping to solve through this trip?  Is there a broken relationship from which you’re trying to recover and running away to somewhere is actually an escape for you to get away from the pain?  What are you hiding that you don’t want your parents to discover?    
3. Stories must have an end emotional goal (which doesn’t have to be positive), it can be happy or sad.  What is the emotional end-game for you, for your story?  When you’re thinking about the wrap-up conversation at the end of your episode, what is the closure to your story?  What is the emotional reward at the end of the show?  How is your emotional goal achieved and what is it that the audience is going to relate to and say, “wow…that story totally blew me away…what a great story! I didn’t see that coming.”
4. Stories can be individuals, couples or groups (so your situation could cross all of these?)

So…the bottom line, there’s potential in your trip as long as we can get at the underlying emotional story, but the video must reveal the answers to the above guidelines.  What about your story would compel them to want to watch the show?  What is the human story inside the veneer of the travel you’re proposing?

Ideas:

• How do you evaluate the emotional impact and your perspective of safety based on the Bali terrorist attacks of 2002 and 2005 which resulted in the death of many people including foreign tourists.  The sensational news became widespread throughout the world, so is there an emotional twist to this, a hidden fear that lurks?  How has the promise of paradise overwhelmed the fear of the past tragedy?  How do the cultural beliefs of the locals backed by their Hindu religion allow them to recover from the horrible suicide attacks and how is this playing into your groups plans and goals?  Is this even a topic you can freely discuss with the locals when you arrive?
• Do you have a hidden fear of the ocean that has prohibited you from ever scuba diving?  How can this retreat be the jumping off point to help you overcome those fears and take the plunge?  What body wrenching sobs have to happen before you get the wetsuit on and how does your scuba instructor get you to breath into a brown bag to stop you from hyperventilating? 
• Are you a surfer who has always wanted to visit Dreamland Beach in Bali, Indonesia?  It was the best little hidey-hole on the Bukit and a great place to just kick back and watch the world go by, until tourism and commercialism changed all that.  What used to be fun little waves at times and great views from the top of the hill are now built up with a resort that has changed paradise forever. Seeing your face as you visit the beach and see firsthand what they’ve done to the hill there really saddens you, not only for Bali – but for the fact of what’s sacred anymore?

Sample Story

In order to give you a better sense of the type of Journey Of A Lifetime stories we are seeking, please review the following story submitted by one of our applicants. Every city in the U.S. has concentrations of culturally diverse groups originating somewhere else on the globe. This show explores the relational connections and emotional ties of the iGeneration in America to unique and exciting travel destinations.

Applicants desire to win their own “Journey Of A Lifetime” as sparked by the youth of today wanting to travel and explore their roots. In every town, there are young adults with roots somewhere else… Reality TV Travel Show – Typical Journey Of A Lifetime Show

A beautiful young lady in high school seeks to understand her cultural heritage of being 100% Italian. Her parents, raised in an Italian neighborhood in the Bronx, don’t speak Italian and have never been to Italy. She feels like she is missing something by not knowing more about her Italian roots. She longs to know more about what is so compelling about being Italian. Our story follows the research done by the young woman and the challenges and rewards of digging in to her roots. She shares a picture on the mantle of the family fireplace of her grandmother’s mom, her great-grandmother, who came to the U.S. through Ellis Island from a stone farmhouse in Tuscany. Her grandmother shares with her that she has never been to Italy and longs to meet her cousins about whom she has only heard stories since she was a child. Her father shares with her some of the stories with which he grew up, as well as the Italian traditions that have been passed down from their family in Italy. The young woman fears that if she doesn’t do something soon, her grandmother may pass away before ever getting to go to Italy and her father may never get to travel to Italy, as his total disability may soon prevent him from traveling at all. Her passionate plea is to connect and reunite her family.

We will follow our Co-Hosts as they guide this family as they prepare for and depart on their "Journey Of A Lifetime." Upon arriving, we experience the anticipation and excitement of meeting relatives for the first time. As the Italian host family welcomes their American counterparts into their home, we see a look of shock come over the young woman’s face. She looks over at her grandmother, who by now has tears streaming down her face. When the translator is asked by the Italian hosts what has happened to make grandma cry, grandma points to the picture on the mantle of their fireplace and points out that it is EXACTLY the same picture of her mother as she has at home on her fireplace mantle. The matriarch of the Italian host family shares that her mother, the sister of the woman in the picture, spoke of the love she had for her sister until she passed away, never getting to see her sister over the 40 years since she left for America with her husband. It’s a fascinating look at family dynamics from the perspective of both continents.

The young woman is taken by our Co-Hosts through the art, history, culture and nightlife of some of the great towns in Tuscany. The allure of international travel to intriguing destinations wrapped in the blanket of deep and meaningful relationships connecting generations across continents. Each week our Co-Hosts will introduce a surprised contest winner to their "Journey Of A Lifetime." Each story will be selected because they have demonstrated an often-emotional recounting of his or her life and how it connects with another life in another country. There will always be an emotional connection, something to which the audience can relate and be moved. The shows will include stories that will engage audiences with extraordinary glimpses of how personal relationships and true connections with locals can change lives. Audiences will reflect on the show they’ve just seen and go, “wow…I want a life changing "Journey Of A Lifetime" like that!”