Win a Trip You Won’t Forget

Nicholas Kristof writes: I’m pleased to invite you to apply for the 2009 Win-a-Trip contest. As I wrote in my column, I will take a university student with me on a reporting trip to Africa, giving the student a chance to blog for nytimes.com and to file videos to The Times and Youtube.

Just to get you in the right frame of mind, here’s how Michael Kinsley envisioned the trip in one of his columns in The Washington Post a few years ago:

It’s the middle of the night. We’re in a small tent pitched on the rocky slope of a mountain trail: me, Nick, our trusty guide, three prostitutes we’ve rescued from a life of sex slavery and four local businessmen unjustly accused of insider trading on the village’s primitive, hand-pumped stock exchange. Outside, the jackals are yelping. Inside, nature is calling. Urgently. Am I man enough to face the jackals, or masochist enough to wait until morning? Answer: Whatever. I’m tough. I can handle either of these. But ultimately, the jackals are less terrifying than the thought of one more minute listening to Nick’s tales of all the real adventures he’s been on that make this one seem like a game of patty-cake. I flee the tent, am devoured by the jackals and Kristof gets a column out of it.

Actually, we’ll stay away from the jackals on this trip. I’m not sure where we’ll go, but some possibilities are Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Liberia and/or Ghana. The coup in Guinea is still sorting itself out, so we’ll see how that develops.

The contest is open to students at American universities – either undergraduates or graduate students – who are 18 years old or over. I know I’ll get indignant letters from other people, but right now I’m confining it to students. Please consult the full rules, which explain more about eligibility.

You can apply either with an essay or with a video, or both. Send the essay to winatrip@nytimes.com. Post the video on my Youtube channel, www.youtube.com/NicholasKristof, next to my own video invitation for applications. In either case, just explain why I should pick you.

ALSO: Check out this Trip Video