There were a lot of grumblings about Antarctica as a destination, plus I'm bored so:
START: San Francisco, CA - Alamo Square Park
Leg 1: USA to Chile (Santiago)
-- Ideally, this will show off Santiago + surrounding areas better than TAR 16.
Leg 2: Chile (La Serena)
-- Desert-based legs
Leg 3: Chile to Antarctica
-- Teams start off by flying to Punta Arenas and perhaps do some sort of task there
-- From there, they essentially follow
this, although perhaps with more of a focus on (simple) research.
-- I would imagine there's some sort of convenient anti-bunching involved because otherwise everyone's going to be bunched together for the entire leg
Leg 4: Antarctica to Chile (Easter Island)
-- Because I enjoy torturing people with climate changes and because it's one of the last major landmarks untouched by WRP
Leg 5: Chile to Australia (Melbourne)
-- Because I enjoy torturing people with timezone changes.
Because of the lengthy journey, I figured it would be easiest to visit a metropolis. Since WRP is probably never going to Sydney again after the TAR 18 opening leg, Melbourne is the next-largest choice.
Leg 6: Australia to South Africa (Johannesburg / Durban)
-- We haven't really had many 'urban' African legs so hopefully the possibilities of auto racing and casinos and wine will remedy that slightly.
Leg 7: South Africa to Lesotho (Maseru / Thaba Bosiu)
-- I'd be 'nice' enough to have them drive there but I could see charter flights being used.
-- This would be your standard 'everyday tasks in a small village' African leg
Leg 8: Lesotho to (South Africa) to Israel (Haifa / Caesarea)
-- Why...not? Israel is safe(r) to visit and even if they wanted to avoid the West Bank, there's still plenty to do.
-- In this case, 'things to do' include archaeology, art and lots of self-driving
Leg 9: Israel (Tel Aviv)
-- This may or may not be a nighttime party-based leg (not unlike Hamburg or Prague 2)
Leg 10: Israel to China (Tianjin)
-- Or 'how to have a leg in China without visiting the same three cities'
-- Ideally, teams fly to Beijing and travel by train to Tianjin so as to take care of the likely bunching that may result
Leg 11: China to Russia (Harbin / Khabarovsk)
-- Or 'how to have a vaguely European leg without visiting Europe'
-- If the Antarctic leg was 'work' based, this would be 'play' based. Ice-sculptures, museums, food, and drunken buffoonery - everything you would want in a penultimate leg
Leg 11: Russia to USA (Minneapolis)
-- yes, it's a random destination for a final leg but given that we've had Phoenix and the Florida Keys before a full leg in Texas...*shrugs*
-- the Mall of America, hockey, tree-climbing, a memory task involving the numerous bookstores in the area, and a cryptic clue from said bookstores to the finish line
FINISH: Longfellow Gardens, Minneapolis, MN
6 continents, (8 countries), 18 cities, over 40,000 miles, etc.