Expeditions: Around the World

Expeditions is a lovely light family game of travelling the world and visiting tourist sites. But there are only three expeditions in total, and there are a lot of places to see…

The board shows a map of the world with 70 or so destinations dotted across it, and dotted lines between them representing the paths the expeditions will take. Players are dealt 12 Expedition cards, each with a unique destination on them. Your goal is to make sure each of these destinations are visited by one of the expeditions, as they spread across the board: the catch being that all players collectively choose what paths they take.

On your turn you can extend one of the three (red, yellow, blue) expedition routes by a single path (each of them start in Germany), by adding a plastic arrow to the end of the route. If the route reaches the destination on one of yours – or anyone’s – cards, then that player reveals the card from their hand. As soon as someone reveals their last card, the end of the game is triggered: play to the end of the current round and then players score a point per revealed card and minus a point for each one still in your hand.

So it is in essence a race, but it’s possible to win despite not reaching all the destinations in your hand, because there are always 6 ‘public’ destinations available for anyone to claim, with any of the expeditions reaching them. And the board itself also gives some tactical options: several path intersections don’t have destinations but instead blue squares – immediately place another arrow – or red stars: take a ticket. You begin with three tickets and each one is worth a point at the end of the game, but they can alternatively be spent to lay extra arrows or even remove the last-placed arrow from a route.

Occasionally the default rule of ‘no branching’ can be gotten around: by creating a loop. If a route ever rejoins itself (for clarification, they can never double-back) then you’re allowed to immediately place a branching arrow anywhere along its line. And finally, before the game begins each player must place tokens on the board revealing 4 of their card destinations: if you remove these during play (by taking expeditions there) they’re worth a bonus point – but any still on the board in scoring are minus a point.