Every year, travel blogger Anil Polat aka foXnoMad organizes on his blog a tournament for finding the most attractive tourist destination of the year, based entirely on his readers’ proposals and votes. After an interesting route, the 2013 competition has now reached the semifinals, where Bucharest (Romania), Granada (Spain), Sibiu (Romania) and Buenos Aires (Argentina) fight for a seat at the winners’ table. But before this, let’s wrap up the previous rounds to see what duels were on!

1. Nominations – February 26th – 28th

Anil’s readers and subscribers had the chance to propose their favourite city. At the end, around 74 cities were proposed.

2. Preliminary voting – February 28th – March 3rd

The public had the chance to vote for 10 cities to help Anil establish the order of each city in the competition. First 54 cities went directly to the Round of 64.

3. First Round – March 5th – 6th

Remaining 20 cities entered this round, which resulted in tight victories for cities such as Delft, Beijing, Pattaya and Seoul.

4. Second Round (Round of 64) – March 7th – 11th

While Dublin barely overran Beijing and Santiago won over Tunis at only 1 vote, cities such as Sibiu, Granada, Bucharest, Lisbon, Florence, Paris, Budapest, New York, Stockholm and Cairo  gathered over 100 votes each.

5. Round of 32 – March 12th – 13th

Surprising difference between Sibiu – which seems to be the overachiever of this competition – and Florence (320 votes). At the other side of the competition, Cape Town needed only19 votes to qualify to the next stage and eliminate San Francisco.

6. Sweet 16 – March 14th – 18th

Granada, Lisbon, Edinburgh, Bucharest and Sibiu had easy victories, while Casablanca, Bienos Aires and Dublin seemed to struggle a bit to overpass their opponents.

7. Elite 8 – March 19th – 20th

Very tight fight between neighbouring Granada and Lisbon, which ended with the victory of the Spanish city. Sibiu and Bucharest received a lot of support and went on to the semifinals, together with Buenos Aires.

8. Final Four – March 21st – 25th

At the moment, Sibiu is way ahead Buenos aires, while Bucharest and Granada are very close to each other, with the balance slightly inclined in favour of Granada. A Romanian final would be interesting, but it all depends on Bucharest’s ability to pull up its socks.

If you have ever visited one of the four cities or you just fancy one of them, don’t save your vote! Help Anil choose the best city to visit for 2013 and change its life this year! 🙂