Over the past few days I have been following the Alienware backpacking challenge, as I'm sure many of you have.

Here is a statement from the Alienware challenge website.

"The Alienware Backpacking Challenge kick off

We have gone through hundreds of applications and it has taken several days to narrow it down to the final four applicants for the Alienware Backpacking Challenge. The Alienware Backpacking Challenge will push the boundaries of these contestants as they travel across Europe, completing various challenges we throw at them. You will be able to follow their progress right here on this microsite as they blog about their experiences on the road. They will also need your support as it will be the community who decides who wins the Alienware Backpacking Challenge so check back soon to find out who we are sending out there.

Starting point: the Electronic Sports World Cup on the 30th of June - see you there!"

The 4 lucky hand-picked backpackers are -

Livia Teernstra - 23 Years Old - Former CGS Player.
Matthijs Hoving - 24 Years Old - Shoutcaster for QuadV.
Ben Balcombe - 23 Years Old - Teaching Assistant.
Alasdair Sparrow - 23 Years Old - Inter/Student.

Ben 'Ben0' and Alasdair 'Mr Duck' deserve particular mention for their roles in the E-Sports community over the years. They are well known by many in the community and can be found regularly lurking over at the Cadred forums.

Ben has played for infamous CSS teams such as Zboard and Alasdair regularly contributes to the forum with news posts as part of the Cadred news team.

The challenge is so far 2 weeks in and I'm not exactly sure how long it is running for, you can read the blogs and watch the vlogs of the 4 contestants as well as browse the pictures they have taken on their journies so far. They are using the Alienware M11X's they have been provided with to use through-out the challenge. The winner (whoever does the best overall through-out all of the competitions challenges) will bag themselves a not so bad $5,000 cash prize!

You can follow the challenge and see how they're progressing warechallenge.com/"> here.

~ Mike