Taking liberties: a jailbreak to San Diego
Every year, rag week students compete to get as far across the world as they can. Here's how the Guardian helped two of them to go to the west coast of the US, 5,500 miles away
It was around midday when I picked up the phone to an eager, breathless voice. "Hello! Is that the Guardian travel desk? I'm Sarah Malik and I am a student at Cambridge University and I'm taking part in a competition for charity. I'm in reception and I wondered if you could help – we have until 9pm tomorrow to get as far around the world as possible!"
Something about the excitement in her voice spurred me down the stairs to hear them out. Sarah and Alice were taking part in a rag week "jailbreak" stunt. Teams had 36 hours to get as far from their start point as possible. Last year's winners had made it to Washington DC, about 3,600 miles. The clock was ticking.
Using industry contacts I tried to get them last-minute flights to the world's furthest-flung destinations – New Zealand or South Africa. To no avail – but then Hotels.com came to my rescue. "How about San Diego? The flight goes from Heathrow in two and a half hours – can they make it?"
Course they could … and here's their story …
Gemma Bowes, Guardian travel editor
At 9am, 122 teams were gathered in a mock "jail" in Cambridge. We would all have 36 hours to blag, beg and busk our way around the globe. Each year the imagination of the teams reaches new heights. One year a team got to the Med without taking off their banana costumes; others were cautioned at the Parthenon in Athens for photographing each other dressed as cows.
In 2010 the prize was taken by a pair of amateur magicians who spent the weekend frantically busking to buy two tickets to Washington DC. When the go signal was fired, we joined in a mass stampede heading directly to the train station. We gamely rattled our purple collecting bucket until we'd collected enough coins to buy two £15 tickets to London. Once at King's Cross we felt braver – we had escaped Cambridge and a world of possibilities lay before us. We spent two hours trying to get sponsorship from firms before landing at the Guardian offices, where travel editor Gemma Bowes was our "Guardian angel". She eventually told us she had found us a flight to San Diego. We got to check-in with minutes to spare and boarded our United Airlines plane euphoric. San Diego is 5,500 miles from Cambridge, and as it was still just a few hours after the start, we were sure we were in first place.
Changing at Washington DC, we finally landed in San Diego, to sunshine and palm trees. A text told us that Hotels.com had found us a room, at the Hard Rock Hotel. The much-needed drink was illegal (the hotel cleared the mini-bar in our room), as we are under 21, so we explored. On 5th Avenue we found a Mexican restaurant – Tequila 100 (+1 619 233 2838, tequila100.net) – and ravenously consumed our American-sized portions.
The aim of the jailbreak is to do as much as possible without using your own money. We had £50 in dollars for security. We decided to spend the day checking out the area and were delighted to find that most of San Diego's interesting shops were on 4th and 5th Avenues, right by our hotel. We were smitten with the Bettie Page store (bettiepageclothing.com), which sells 1950s-style dresses. The shop owner found us perfect dresses to try on (with matching shoes and belts) and we posed in the window like pin-ups.
But there was plenty to see without spending a dime. The Exclusive Collection Gallery on 5th (ecgallery.com) was showing fine art from artists such as Michael Flohr, and at the Horton Plaza Mall (westfield.com/hortonplaza) we browsed in American classics such as Abercrombie & Fitch.
Our age and lack of funds (or smart clothes) meant the city's reputedly brilliant nightlife was off-limits, so we made do with a mountain of frozen yoghurt, piled high with fruit and sugary toppings, for just $5 at the