This past summer, a handful of my friends and I joined up and formed a GISHWHES team and partook in a week-long adventure. And, if I’m being completely honest, it was most definitely one of the most fun adventures that I’ve ever been on in my entire life.

But wait, you may be asking yourself, what is GISHWHES? Allow me to explain.

Every year, during the first week of August, people from all around the globe take part in a huge, international scavenger hunt called the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen, aka GISHWHES. The Hunt, as it’s also called, is created by Misha Collins, who is primarily known nowadays as Castiel from the hit CW show Supernatural and is sponsored by the Random Acts of Kindness foundation.

So what, you say? Why is this so important? Let me tell you why participating in the yearly Gish is such a fun time.

1. You get to meet people from around the globe.

Each team is filled with 15 Gishers, and unless you can form your own team with you and fourteen of your friends, you’ll likely be combined with people from various other countries – it’s an international activity for a reason. You’ll likely never even meet these people in person anyways, but you’ll know someone from other countries, which is pretty cool if you ask me.

2. You learn valuable time management and communication skills.

Working with fourteen other people can sound daunting if that isn’t a part of your daily life already, and it’s even more scary when some of these people are from other countries and in different time zones. However, you do have access to the internet and means of communication, so it’s fairly easy to communicate with your team members. Also, the Hunt lasts only one week to complete and submit your tasks, so time is of the essence.

3. You get to try crazy, ridiculous, and sometimes embarrassing things.

GISHWHES is no ordinary scavenger hunt where you have to go out and find things. Actually, “GISHWHES” and “ordinary” shouldn’t even be used in the same sentence, and there is logic behind this. The tasks that you and your team have to complete are some of the most eccentric things. For example, this year, one of our teammates had to recreate a childhood picture, and her picture of choice was sitting in a toilet. Another thing we had to do was pour wine – or in our case, cranberry juice since we were all underage – onto guests dressed in white at a fancy dinner party…from a second story window. Yeah. It gets weird.

4. You get to step far outside of your comfort zone and social acceptance.

Some tasks that we do can really stretch the limits of one’s comfort, as well as what's socially acceptable. Take this, for instance: another task we had to do was to dress up in tennis whites and play badminton in a mall food court. Technically, it isn’t a prohibited activity in a mall’s handbook, but it’s frowned upon anyways. Our game lasted maybe five minutes or so before a guard shut us down, but hey: it was fun and quite a memorable experience!

5. You can build stronger friendships with your teammates.

Like I stated in the beginning, my team had both international participants and a handful of my own friends from home. Our team captain offered her house as headquarters, and for nearly an entire week my friends and I slept over her house and essentially lived together. When you live with someone, you really get to know them, and sometimes it either promotes a stronger friendship or it can tear friends apart. Thankfully, it brought us all closer together, and today these girls are my absolute best friends from back home.

6. All proceeds go to charity.

GISHWHES is associated with Random Acts of Kindness (RAK), which is a non-for-profit organization that promotes doing kind things for those around you. At registration, you pay $20 for the basic package, and each package has a different price. All of these proceeds go towards RAK. Also, for the 2015 Hunt, one of the tasks was to go to a crowded place and sell hugs for five dollars. All of the money collected was instructed to be donated to charity. My fellow teammates, who participated last year, sent all of their money to the Make A Wish Foundation. It’s a good deal; having fun and giving back to the community.

7. The team that comes in first wins trip with Misha Collins to the year’s country of choice.

Every year there is a grand prize, and every year it is a trip with Misha Collins to a country of his choosing. This year, it was a trip to Iceland. The winning team gets to accompany him on this adventure, which for most Gishers, is the dream of a lifetime. In order to win that trip, a team has to complete the tasks and earn the highest amount of points with amazing quality submissions; and no, it doesn’t necessarily mean completing all of the tasks, as that’s essentially impossible.

8. You get to have fun.

It’s important to remember that it’s summertime, and summer is meant to be fun. So instead of sitting around re-watching your favorite TV series on Netflix for the hundredth time, sign up for GISHWHES and have a blast for a week!

Registration opens in the spring for the 2017 Hunt, so when you're making your summer plans, remember to add GISHWHES to your list! Happy GISHing!