Stez

So Ladies and Gentlemen, we finally now have the result of the Trip Report of the Year 2012.

But first we would like to share some of our thoughts on the finalists. In no particular order...

CreativeBill's TR of course won the First Timer report the other day. But it was so good that some judges felt that it was a strong contender for overall TR of the year as well as, or instead of, the First Timer report.

On the other hand, Matthandy was last year's winner and has a clutch of excellent TRs under his belt. 2012 was no exception and it was no surprise that his trip to Hong Kong (and elsewhere) was right up there in terms of quality of production, design, good writing, and superlative photography. It's quite tricky to get details without descending into excess verbiage and Matthandy always gets the balance spot on.

Alongside Matthandy, PETER01 is another old hand at the TR game, he had two up for contention, and we decided to focus on the Australia trip. Many people heading that way will read PETER01's report with interest, and enjoy the large array of photographs, from both the flight and Australia. You can sense the author's excitement and enjoyment. This was a TR that we very much liked and made it through to the final round of debate among the judges.

Many of us were impressed by the report from SFO777. He could never be accused of showing excess favouritism to British Airways. Nevertheless his trip report had in it something that many other TRs lacked: analysis and commentary. It's definitely one of our highlighted TRs on the year and well worth a re-visit to enjoy the high quality writing and photographs. It is also unusual in being a British Airways TR that started and ended somewhere other than London.

Which bring us on to ContinentalClub's unusual report on the delivery of BA 777 aircraft STBF from Seattle to Cardiff. This is certainly a unique report for a very special occasion. The photos convey a story more than a simple trip, with a wonderful to read narrative to back it up. For many of us, this would be literally the trip of a lifetime, something that money cannot buy. ContinentalClub's TR therefore utterly fulfilled one very important criteria: allowing the reader to feel in some way or other part of this amazing experience.

After considerable debate the Ambassadors are united in awarding the BAEC Forum's Trip Report of 2012 to ContinentalClub. Many congratulations are in order and we thank the author for sharing this excellent story.

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Also mentioned in dispatches, for related reasons, were the reports from EightBlack and PanGalactic. EightBlack's Hunter S. Thompson style is very effective in getting a good gonzo belly laugh. He also has an interesting way of juxtaposing travel time with thread timing, to give a sense of a slow motion car crash narrowly averted. Only PanGalatic can screw up a simple trip to Amsterdam, and in one short trip he managed to skirt his way around more disasters than some of us in a lifetime of flying. A very different Trip Report than many on here, and very readable.

We also want to salute the affectionate and very human TR of noniron and his wife to the USA, and making excellent use of Avios and the companion voucher system along the way. zanskar had a certain advantage in that his trip report focused on Oman, a favourite destination of several ambassadors - the Trip Report gives excellent reportage of that wonderful country.

Then there is RB211's report on a trip home from SFO to LHR. A short report but long on warmth, with a focus on good customer service from BA staff. concorde02's report was an around the world tour, from Vancouver to Seattle, via South Africa and Asia, with BA featuring in some of the sectors. The sheer love of travel comes over in spades of affection. Finally we should mention one of our long suffering Mods, our very own Swedish House Mafiosa, Petrus. He was on the same trip as ContinentalClub and his TR gives an excellent set of additional photos from that extraordinary event.

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We know trip reports take a long time to produce and require considerable efforts. We conclude by expressing our thanks to everyone who wrote a trip report in 2012 and we hope there will be plenty more to read in 2013. It has been a privilege for us to judge this competition and we have very much enjoyed the opportunity.

Best wishes from all the BAEC Ambassadors
BahrainLad, corporate-wage-slave, dave_c, dunk, DWFI and Stez.