Greetings travelers!

I've spent the last two weeks thinking about how to continue with #swmchallenge. The downtrends in STEEM price and crypto in general have driven a lot of users away from the Steem blockchain. Consequently the challange lost quite a couple members and as each month passed, price dropped, more people left.

Too see our community fade away in the downtrends and stop using our chain of blocks was devastating. Losing members to the bear market was something I didn't expect but, I'm not surprised to see it happen.

Hosting a challange with such rapidly declining number of participants one can't fight against makes no sense.

I'm still not fully capable to end the #swmchallenge as I really enjoy hosting it, reading your adventures, digitally experiencing the places you visited, sharing it with the community and rewarding best of them.

Thereby, we are going to have one last #swmchallenge as a farewell.

If this, for some reason revives our lost comrades, or brings in new ones to get #swmchallenge back on track with entries. The challenge will go on! If not, then this will truly be our last challenge.

Make it count!

Welcome to the 38th week of the #swmchallenge where we travel around the globe and try to bring up to light the most unique and special places or events worth visiting or putting on your travel bucket list. Each week here is filled with posts full of captivating scenery, stunning images and great stories. Basically, great travel blogs worth checking out. So If you like to travel (digitally or in real life) #swmchallenge is the place to go.

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For those who still don't know about SteemitWorldMap

It's a fun tool made by @blueorgy and @martibis that allows you to pin your posts to a specific location or browse the world map where ideally every place on the map is a Steemit post. #swmchallenge is my attempt to make it more popular and build a community around it.

Travel blogs of the week

#1 Travel: I got lost but look what I found 🏞️

@guchtere takes us on a full day trip around Bled lake in Slovenia. He started the day off with a sight of a breath-taking sunrise above the lake from Hotunjski vrh. He noticed the signs for Pokljuka gorge during his biketrip to the other gorge, the Vintgar, so he decided that he needed to see this one as well. The walk started in a dry riverbed wandering through the forest. But soon, he was surrounded by steep walls, lush forest, natural bridges and some caves, as he describes it. He also visited the best waterfall in Slovenia, as he says, Peričnik. It looks beautiful when dipped into the autumn color pallet and his photos are out of this world. He ended the day with a nice SUP session at the calm waters of lake Bled.

#2 Flash Flood - The Treasury, Petra - Jordan

Next, we join who @vcclothing shares his almost movie-like experience while vistiting the ancient Jordanian city of Petra. He decided to take a full day of exploring Petra. It began at 6 am and one degree, with a slight drizzle of rain. As he was walking towards the entrance of the gorge Siq, the rain was a constant drizzle. As he made his way through the gorge, the rain was getting heavier. The horse and carts that carry tourists and supplies were all slipping on the wet ground. He made his way to the end of the Siq where it opens up to the magnificent treasury. The Treasury is carved into the sand stone, when it rains the water runs down past the treasury so it never gets wet. All of a sudden, the dam wall at the Treasury broke and water slowly trickled past the front of the Treasury, which quickly turned into a raging river within minutes. The following day, the weather was beautiful and he had a full day of exploring Petra.

#3 Knossos: The "Modern" Minoan Palace Near Heraklion

Lastly, @for91days visited the "Modern" Minoan Palace Near Heraklion, Knossos. The ruins of Knossos is one of the most remarkable archaeological sites in the Western world. It's a place drenched in history so ancient, it's positively mythological. The first palace at Knossos was built around 2000 BC. An 17th century BC earthquake wiped out the original palace, but a new one was built right on top, and Knossos remained inhabited until the era of the Romans. A visit to the palace is worthwhile and there is plenty to see. You can go inside a few of the rooms, and there are some restored frescoes. Their favorite was a room on the lower levels, decorated with a series of dolphins. They also treated us with some as always amazing photos from Knossos.

Honorable mentions

The John Graves Scenic Riverway
Looking down on the ground 垂頭
YL Shikoku Trip#1 Takamatsu & Tokushima
#155 MyPictureDay ~ By the Scheldt River of Antwerp (2) - Port House 💎

HOW TO ENTER

Make a post about a place you visited and share it with the SteemitWorldMap
Use the #swmchallenge tag
Check last week's winners to see what kind of quality I'm hoping you can achieve
Tag your post accordingly and add at least 200 words of description
See how to add posts to the map here HOW TO add a post to the world map guide

RULES

Original and quality content only (plagiarism will be punished)
Only use high quality images
Unlimited amount of entries
Only quality posts will be taken in consideration and all attempts to miss-use #swmchallenge tag will be punished

REWARDS

1st - 4 SBI shares
2nd - 3 SBI shares
3rd - 2 SBI shares
4 Honorable mentions - 1 SBI share each

What are SBI shares?

Steem Basic Income is a social experiment to bring a basic income to as many Steemians as possible. Members join by sponsoring others into the program. Steem Basic Income is delivered through providing regular upvotes to member content.

Instead of giving you a one time payment of x SBD, from now on I want to reward you with daily votes from @steembasicincome that last FOREVER!

The more shares you collect from winning contests or by sponsoring someone else, the higher the upvotes you will get, daily, FOREVER.

Enrollment process is done manually so you might not see the wallet message from @steembasicincome straight away, but it will come in a day or two.

For more information about the project read the FAQ

You can find other contests that hand out SBI shares as rewards here.

HELP THE CONTEST GROW BY

• Participating
• Donating to increase the reward pool
• Resteeming this post for increased visibility and more people joining
• Inviting your friends and fellow steemians to join the contest and share their travel posts in the map

As always, best of luck to everyone, see you in a week when the contest ends, winners are announced and the new contest begins.