Tour of Watopia [October 2023]

[manda_F (Amanda)]

Tour of Watopia is back… again! With so many new people coming to Zwift this time of year, what better way to start their time on Zwift than having them hit the XP jackpot?

Tour of Watopia is the tour that levels you up faster. The more you ride, the more you level up! This year, we are also bringing you Tour of Watopia on-demand, allowing you the flexibility to ride on your own time!

To make sure you can participate in Tour of Watopia, please make sure your Zwift version is up to date. You can learn more about checking your Zwift version here.

During Tour of Watopia, you will earn double XP, taking you to the next level faster. You will only get double XP the first time you complete a route within the stage, instead of everytime you ride a route. In order to maximize your XP, complete all of the routes within a stage. You will know that you have completed any particular route by the “Completed” marker shown on the in-game tracker. During a ride where you are earning double XP, the XP indicator will be yellow and show that you are receiving a higher amount. If you already completed that route and decide to ride it again, the XP indicator will not show the higher XP amount.

There will be five stages for Tour of Watopia:

• Stage 1: October 2, 2023 @ 17:00 UTC - October 9, 2023 @ 04:00 UTC
• Stage 2: October 9, 2023 @ 05:00 UTC - October 16, 2023 @ 04:00 UTC
• Stage 3: October 16, 2023 @ 05:00 UTC - October 22, 2023 @ 04:00 UTC
• Stage 4: October 23, 2023 @ 05:00 UTC - October 30, 2023 @ 04:00 UTC
• Stage 5: October 30, 2023 @ 05:00 UTC - November 6, 2023 05:00 UTC
• Makeup Week: November 6, 2023 @ 16:00 UTC - November 13, 2023 @ 05:00 UTC

***If you are participating in the tour on-demand, Stage 5 will be available in a future update, arriving no later than Oct. 30. Please make sure to keep your Zwift version up to date.

Click here to convert to your local time zone.

For ride, each stage offers different route options. Choose your own adventure—ride one or ride them all!

Category A will be the longest ride.

Category C will be the shortest ride.

Category B lies somewhere in between Category A and C in terms of duration.

All genders can join categories A, B, and C, but the D category is for women only and follows the same route as Category B.

The categories are:

• Category A: Long Ride
• Category B: Standard Ride
• Category C: Short Ride
• Category D: Standard Ride (Women Only)

For run, there will only be a standard category for Stage 1 & 2 but all remaining stages will have a standard and short category.

There will also be awesome unlocks along the way. There is a new cap, shoes and kit to earn this year!

There will be no web based tracker for Tour of Watopia but you are able to track your progress on Zwift or Zwift Companion. Want to learn more about Tour of Watopia? Check out the main page here and the FAQ here.

[SeattleSauve (Aaron)]

@manda_F

You will only get double XP the first time you complete a route within the stage, instead of everytime you ride a route.

Ah man, that’s a bummer. I enjoyed trying to see how many double XP rides I could stuff in last time, I guess this year it’s one and done per stage.

[Paul_Southworth (Paul)]

@manda_F

During Tour of Watopia, you will earn double XP, taking you to the next level faster. You will only get double XP the first time you complete a route within the stage, instead of everytime you ride a route. In order to maximize your XP, complete all of the routes within a stage. You will know that you have completed any particular route by the “Completed” marker shown on the in-game tracker. During a ride where you are earning double XP, the XP indicator will be yellow and show that you are receiving a higher amount. If you already completed that route and decide to ride it again, the XP indicator will not show the higher XP amount.

Wondering what happens if you do most of a route earning double XP, end the ride right before the finish of the route, then do it again… (Asking for a friend)

[Yousuf_Kazmi]

“I wonder why the Tour of Watopia numbers are down…?”

The Tour of Watopia has one job, give people Double XP every ride they can do !
Oh and welcome in any new roads Zwift may have blessed into Watopia

[Erlendur_S_Th]

What routes will there be for each stage? On the FAQ it says " To learn more about the routes in Tour of Watopia, visit the Tour of Watopia main page." but on that page then nothing happens when I try to click the stage cards.

[Ian_Attoe (Ian)]

You really really shouldn’t have to, but when you want to know what Zwift is offering visit this website:

Double Up With Tour of Watopia Fall 2023: Stage Details and New Features

[SeattleSauve (Aaron)]

@Paul_Southworth

if you do most of a route earning double XP, end the ride right before the finish of the route, then do it again…

I have a friend that is also wondering this very same thing … Maybe it’s the same friend?

[Sven_Setterdahl (Sven)]

Some of the routes are live in the Companion app.
Stage 1:
A - 3 little sisters, B - watopia figure 8, and C - ocean lava cliffside
Stage 2:
A - eastern 8, B - triple flat loops, C - Tick Tock
Stage 3:
A - tour of fire and ice, B -climber’s gambit, C - volcano climb
Stage 4:
A - big loop, B - road to ruins, C - jungle circuit
Stage 5: not listed

[Zee_Kryder (Zee)]

What if you do all three rides of each stage?
I already have 1.6 million xp.

[SeattleSauve (Aaron)]

@Zee_Kryder

What if you do all three rides of each stage?

Yeah, it does sound like you get double XP for each route - so three routes per stage (this was re-emphasized in the 'Tour De Wattopia Welcome Ride), so that’s probably what I’m going to do.

That said, the welcome ride seemed to indicate you’d get the double XP once going through the finish
line for the route, so I guess it might not be possible to only partially complete routes to continue getting double XP. Guess they thought of that

If anyone is interested, the TdW Welcome Ride is a banded ride, and does not seem to give double XP as far as I could tell from my ride just now.

[Matjaz_Pintar (Matjaz)]

Today I rode the Welcome ride for TOW. I have Zwift Play and it was announced that the brakes are disabled which was working as advertised. However, the Y button for powerups was not working whereas it shoud. Everything else seemed to work properly on ZP. When I activated powerup on keyboard it worked fine.
I tried to use powerups afterwards in Makuri with RP Miguel it worked fine with ZP. It also worked fine in last stage of Pretzelfest. I did not do anything with ZP in between.
It seems that inadvertently the powerups activation is disabled on ZP with Y button in TOW. Did anybody experience something similar?

[Mark_Murawski (Mark)]

Same exact thing here. I had to use companion app to activate power ups

[calfzilla (Michael)]

Since you can free ride the routes at any time on demand, will the pace partners be on ToW routes for the month? Why not?

[Chris_Crush_MS (Chris)]

Pace Partners are riding 24/7 so you don’t always start at the banner. Even if you time it perfectly there are more than enough ways to get route stages done without adding in pace partners.

[calfzilla (Michael)]

@Chris_Crush_MS

Pace Partners are riding 24/7 so you don’t always start at the banner

So don’t use this as your reason if you’re concerned about that. They can give double XP for it, and it will put more people on ToW routes and get more people engaged.

The answer of course was “no” but I’m asking the ZHQ guys why that isn’t part of this since it’s all available on-demand this year.

[manda_F (Amanda)]

We are aware of an issue with the Tour of Watopia Campaign where members who complete more than one route in a stage will see the campaign tracker fill up faster than intended.

The tracker may show that you have completed approximately 50%+ of the campaign by completing all four routes of Stage 1. You will still need to complete Stage 2-5 to earn the unlocks even if the tracker shows 100% completion.

You will unlock the badge once the tracker shows 100% completion but you will still need to complete all 5 Tour of Watopia stages in order to earn the unlocks. By completing stage one, you will unlock the cycling cap or running hat. Completing three stages will unlock the cycling or running shoes, and completing five stages will unlock the cap.

We are currently working on a fix to correct the campaign tracker.

[Ian_Mears (Ian)]

Double XP

So for anyone who has been on zwift for a while there doesn’t seem much point doing this as I’d imagine huge numbers of people have already completed the majority of Watopia routes.

I was hoping that you would at least get double XP once while doing the route as part of the tour. Bit of a shame really.

[calfzilla (Michael)]

@Ian_Mears

I was hoping that you would at least get double XP once while doing the route as part of the tour.

You do. I just did two different Stage 1 routes and got 40xp/km while doing the route the first time around. Continuing after the banner then gave 20xp/km.

[manda_F (Amanda)]

Hey @Ian_Mears - I will should you a PM.

[calfzilla (Michael)]

Power up durations are not doubled while doing ToW stages as on demand rides. XP is.