Expeditions: Around the World review — No ticket required

Expeditions: Around the World, designed by Wolfgang Kramer, published by Super Meeple, and brought to the US by Hachette Boardgames is a route-building game with a twist. Everyone is engaged in a tug of war to guide the three shared global expeditions to reach their secret objective locations.

At the start of the game, players are dealt a handful of cards that tell them what locations they need to reach to score points and end the game. In addition to cards in your hand, there is a row of shared public objectives that replenish as cards are claimed throughout the game. Turns in Expeditions are simple and quick but with a surprising amount of opportunity for clever play. What seems fairly simple when you first learn the game becomes a nice puzzle that feels very rewarding when it all comes together. 

On your turn, there is only one action that you can do. Choose one of the three expeditions and add an arrow to it. That’s it. Players take turns adding arrows around and around until someone reaches all of their locations or you all run out of arrows. The simplicity of the one action available to you makes the game very approachable as a family game or to introduce new players to the hobby. Crack the surface though and you’ll see there is quite a bit more to the game than just plopping arrows on the board. 

Branching paths, hubs that give you an extra turn, expeditions looping back on themselves, and tickets for bonus actions add just enough depth and decision-making to keep the game interesting without bogging it down. The blue squares on the map are hubs that let you immediately add another arrow. Red stars give you tickets that can be traded in at the right moment for big moves. You can only use two tickets per turn but they can be used at any time during your turn to add another arrow, trade objective cards, or remove the last placed arrow from an expedition to change its direction. Combine bonus moves with tickets, then cause an expedition to loop on itself and you get to have it come back out anywhere along its previous path and you get to pull off some wild and surprising moves. It’s a blast when you pull off a big clever move and the game is full of those moments and plenty of “ahhhhhs” and “oh no!”s when an expedition you were carefully guiding to Australia is now up in North America. 

The game ends when someone reaches all of their destinations or all of the expedition arrows are on the board. Players score one point for every objective they completed, one point for each of their four key objectives they marked on the board at the start of the game if they reached them, then minus one point for each key objective not reached and each card left in your hand.

The production of this new edition of Expeditions is going to be hit or miss. Personally, I love the map with key locations and landmarks illustrated that make it pop and visually interesting. The tradeoff is that it can be a bit hard to read the board at times. The location cards do a good job of indicating where to find the location on the board if your geography skills are a little rusty and all feature some text to give you some info on the location. 

Expeditions is a game I’ve been waiting for. Sure, the original version came out in 1996 but I didn’t know that and the new paint job really boosts it up to modern hobby board game levels. With a 30-45 minute playtime and simple rules that you can teach in minutes, Expeditions is the perfect family or entry-level game.

There are some obvious competitors in the route-building family weight genre and I’m not afraid to say, I cannot stand Ticket to Ride. Expeditions has the same feel but is so much more engaging and lively for me. Everyone around the table controlling the same three routes means you care about every turn. There’s no time spent hoarding cards round after round, you are always going to be advancing an expedition and making progress towards your goals. Because of the bonus spaces on the board and ticket actions, you’ll rarely take a turn where all you can do is add one arrow. I highly recommend this one if you are looking for a new family weight game.

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