I always consider S18 to take place in Yokohama, a city in its own right. I think the only major urban centers that have had good legs are Bangkok and Amsterdam and maybe Sydney too?
START - Los Angeles, CA - duh
LEG 1 - to Chengdu, China - LUZERNLIO basically explained why such a leg would be great so I see no need to go further lol.
LEG 2 - to Luang Prabang, Laos - it literally comes up every other page here
LEG 3 - to Vang Vieng, Laos - adventure-type leg; if they can find a leg close enough to the karst cliffs it doubles as an Emmy nominee in the same vein as the leg in Ha Long Bay in TAR 10
LEG 4 - to Jaislamer, India - it occurs to me that my issue isn't that India is visited all the time, it's that we go to the same five cities again and again. Jaislamer, while relatively close to Jaipur, Jodhpur, and even Delhi, has enough (desert) and culture to make for a full leg.
LEG 5 - to Baku, Azerbaijan - so I rewatched TAR 20 after a bunch of people called it 'unmemorable' and as it turns out the Baku leg was really, REALLY bad. Since it seems TAR only 'fixes' one leg each season I suppose this is the one lol.
LEG 6 - Lankaran, Azerbaijan - recurring themes that this show tends to go to: a) intruding on people's weddings, b) intruding on people working at tea plantations, c) forcing teams to be shirtless for part of the leg. As it turns out Lankaran features ALL THREE and more!
LEG 7 - to Cape Town, South Africa - there you go, BourkieBoy
admittedly this wouldn't be a "traditional" African leg because we've had very few urban African legs presented matter of factly so here it is ^_^. That said it's a plane ride to
LEG 8 - Moteng Valley, Lesotho - which *is* your 'traditional' African leg (plus hat dancing).
LEG 9 - to Andalucia, Spain - In 30 seasons how has there NOT been a route marker / task / Pit Stop (probably Pit Stop in this instance) in the Alhambra???
LEG 10 - to Gibraltar, UK - In 30 seasons how has there NOT been a route marker / task / Pit Stop (likely all three in this instance) in Gibraltar??? There's probably definitely a task involving sorting out the various currencies of the commonwealth and maybe a macquarie as well?
LEG 11 - to Tangier, Morocco - 3 countries in the same general geographic area is possibly overkill but the scope of each of the legs would differ, from the Spanish culture of Malaga to the emphasis on travel to get to Gibraltar to the chaos of Tangier <3
LEG 12 - to Washington, DC - right so this is possibly super self-serving but the TAR 22 leg suuuucked (acknowledging the Nationals fandom was really the most interesting thing they did); give me an eating challenge at Ben's Chili Bowl! Give me a DECENT nod to American history! Force teams on our unfortunate public transportation system
! Give me some sort of variation of that one RB from TARCAN 4 in the National Arboretum (those who watched will know which one I'm referencing)! Plus, given how flights shake out this will either take place fully in darkness (in winter) or else have enough tasks that it ends in darkness (in summer) so
this would be a great finish line.
5 continents, 9 countries, and roughly 28,000 miles is on par with TAR 25 and 28 (and you could probably have leg 11 in another place; Scandinavia or Central America is probably enough to get to 30,000) with the benefit of being able to film at any point in the year.
