Itinerary

Written by Rachel Wei and Patrick Xia

Answer: WILLIAMSBURG

In this puzzle, we are presented with a list of things to do and a set of tickets. The number of events matches the number of rows of tickets, which implies that the number of tickets should match an “answer” to each of the events. We can start by trying to identify some of the references that appear to resolve somewhat uniquely with the tickets to help us confirm our findings.

  • Award gold to a Golden Slam champion. There is only one Golden Slam champion, Steffi Graf (matching 6 4)
  • Launch the Free Speech Movement in a city. The Free Speech Movement launched in Berkeley (matching 8).
  • Open a magical resort. Both Walt Disney World and Disneyland are magical, but only Walt Disney World matches the enumerations of 4 6 5.

As clued by the flavortext, we could look at the “date” these events occurred. We find that these all started on October 1, which is also the start date of our carnival. On the puzzle page, the events are alphabetically sorted to help with identifying the entity. Some webpages like this one or Wikipedia are also helpful.

ClueEntity
Launch the Free Speech Movement in a cityBerkeley
Nationalize a radio corporationBritish Guiana Broadcasting Service
Mourn the death of an English kingEadwig the All-Fair
Start selling an affordable carFord Model T
Publish a recipe collectionMrs Beeton's Book of Household Management
Begin operations of a federal independent agencyNASA
Found a colonial educational institutionSouth African College
Open an American educational institutionStanford University
Award gold to a Golden Slam championSteffi Graf
Sign away Louisiana in a secret agreementThird Treaty of San Ildefonso
Open a magical resortWalt Disney World
Establish a nature reserveYosemite National Park

The flavortext further suggests putting the events “in order.” Sorting the events chronologically by year and taking the letter marked by the golden tickets spell: WILLIAMSBURG.

YearEvent
959EADWIG THE ALL-FAIR
1800THIRD TREATY OF SAN ILDEFONSO
1829SOUTH AFRICAN COLLEGE
1861MRS BEETON'S BOOK OF HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT
1890YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK
1891STANFORD UNIVERSITY
1908FORD MODEL T
1958NASA
1964BERKELEY
1968BRITISH GUIANA BROADCASTING SERVICE
1971WALT DISNEY WORLD
1988STEFFI GRAF

Author's Notes

Rachel: I was originally going to write ten different versions of this puzzle, one for each day of the hunt, all solving to WILLIAMSBURG, because I thought it would be cool to have a puzzle that changed over the course of the hunt independent of what solvers did. I wrote the October 1st version and then realized it was quite difficult to find enough interesting things for October 2nd - 10th; I assume because people like to schedule things for ‘interesting‘ dates like the 1st of a month, and because it‘s an easy default choice for paperwork-related events like establishing government agencies. This puzzle then died until we needed a last-minute replacement puzzle and it was resuscitated in its current form. The idea of a puzzle changing over the course of the hunt did eventually somewhat make its way, after many mutations, into Remember to Hydrate, but I would love to explore or see this idea explored more.