The BEST episodes of The Amazing Race

Every episode of The Amazing Race ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Amazing Race!

This reality television game show pits 11 teams against each other in a worldwide, 30 to 40-day journey through diverse cities and countries spanning the globe. The first team to reach the final destination will be rewarded with $1 million.

Last Updated: 3/9/2024Network: CBSStatus: Continuing
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The Final Push
star
8.69
58 votes

#1 - The Final Push

Season 12 - Episode 11 - Aired 1/20/2008

Ronald Hsu & Christina Hsu, TK Erwin & Rachel Rosales and Nicolas Fulks & Donald Jerousek are the three teams racing for the top prize of one million dollars. TK and Rachel have issues with a Detour, while Donald comes down Nicolas after he makes a mistake. Meanwhile, Ronald watches as Christina hangs on for her life in a challenging task.

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If I Were In Town, I Would Ask For Your Number (2)
star
8.44
16 votes

#2 - If I Were In Town, I Would Ask For Your Number (2)

Season 11 - Episode 8 - Aired 4/1/2007

Unhelpful locals and a tricky language barrier cause one Team to falter as their rivals surge ahead in a double Race leg through Poland. An All-Star fan favorite Team cannot overcome a time penalty and fall victim to the clock and are eliminated.

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It's a Great Place to Become Millionaires (2)
star
8.39
51 votes

#3 - It's a Great Place to Become Millionaires (2)

Season 20 - Episode 12 - Aired 5/6/2012

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This is the Worst Thing I've Ever Done in My Life
star
8.38
151 votes

#4 - This is the Worst Thing I've Ever Done in My Life

Season 15 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/8/2009

The lack of cooperation hinders one team's efforts at an explosive Detour. Also, during the series' first ever "Switchback," Teams return to one of the most infamous Roadblocks in the history of the show.

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Amazing “Crazy” Race (2)
star
8.33
39 votes

#5 - Amazing “Crazy” Race (2)

Season 23 - Episode 12 - Aired 12/8/2013

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We're Not Working With Anybody, Ever, Anymore!
star
8.16
125 votes

#6 - We're Not Working With Anybody, Ever, Anymore!

Season 15 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/22/2009

Tempers flare when one team goes back on their word and a Team spirals into last place when their taxi is stolen by another Team.

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This is Not My Finest Hour
star
8.14
177 votes

#7 - This is Not My Finest Hour

Season 15 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/1/2009

Teams go to The Netherlands, One team tells the others a personal secret. Also, the stress of the race is mounting as one contestant breaks down in tears.

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Man, They Should Have Used Their Fake Names
star
8.12
33 votes

#8 - Man, They Should Have Used Their Fake Names

Season 9 - Episode 10 - Aired 5/3/2006

The teams receive a clue instructing them to travel fifteen miles from their Pit Stop at the South Breakwater to the Silver Bells Tower. Tensions ensue when Eric and Jeremy cancel other teams taxis and then shift the blame to Joseph and Monica. However, it doesn't affect placings as all teams make the same flight to Darwin, Australia --- 1,700 miles away. The teams wade through crocodile-infested waters for a clue and then travel 50 miles to an airfield in the town of Batchelor. One team just manages to reach a Yield before another and then Yields the team they beat. In a Roadblock, one member of each team must take part in a tandem skydive. The teams then travel to the Magnetic Termite Mounds where they face a Detour choice of either Wet or Dry. Some teams fall behind after choosing the extremely challenging Wet task, requiring them to hike and swim one mile through treacherous wilderness. The other two teams choose Dry and duplicate a note on a didgeridoo. While one team arrives comfortably in first place, the rest find themselves facing a three-way foot-race.

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You Look Like Peter Pan
star
8.11
36 votes

#9 - You Look Like Peter Pan

Season 13 - Episode 11 - Aired 12/7/2008

The final three teams, Nick & Starr Spangler, Andrew Lappitt & Dan Honig amd Ken & Tina Greene set off from their Pit Stop at VDNKh Park and receive a clue instructing them to fly to their final destination city: Portland, Oregon.

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Desert Storm
star
8.10
105 votes

#10 - Desert Storm

Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/10/2001

The seven remaining teams start off in El Jem Coliseum, the pit stop for the fourth leg. Upon departure they are given a route marking which tells them they must find a monument known as the Tataouine which is 300 miles away. Although Paul and Amie arrived fifth in the last leg, production problems cause them to move ahead one place in front of Frank and Margarita. When the teams arrive at the Tataouine, they are given a Detour. They must chose between an easy and a difficult game. The easy game is at a hard to find location and the hard game is at an easy to find location. The games are called "Puzzle" and "Listening" .All the teams chose Listening in which they must find the clue using a walkie talkie and find where the other one is. There they will find the clue. The clue says that must find a "yellow and white flag" in the middle of the Sahara Desert and that there are rocks to guide them there. Some teams are a little bit confused as to how the rocks guide them there. But eventual

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Courteous? This Is a Race!
star
8.10
80 votes

#11 - Courteous? This Is a Race!

Season 7 - Episode 1 - Aired 3/1/2005

A new group of teams takes off from Long Beach, California on two flights to Lima, Peru. The new teams include "Survivor couple" Rob and Amber, son and mother Susan and Patrick and pals Ryan and Chuck, among others. Once in Peru, the teams follow clues taking them many miles to various destinations and exploring the country and its mountains. Tasks include riding ziplines and traveling by several forms of local transportation. Several teams fall behind after carelessly not searching carefully before locking in times on a task that put them behind the rest of the pack. Many teams express a desire to outfox, outwit and outrace Rob and Amber. A Detour, Rope a Llama or Rope a Basket, gives teams a choice of either leading llamas into pins or carrying heavy baskets two-thirds of a mile. Some teams struggle with the llamas, while other teams breeze through their chosen task. A true photo finish of mere seconds sends one team home.

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I Think This Monkey Likes Me!
star
8.08
26 votes

#12 - I Think This Monkey Likes Me!

Season 9 - Episode 11 - Aired 5/10/2006

The teams take off from their Pit Stop at Lake Bennett in the Australian outback and receive a clue instructing them to fly nearly 7,000 miles to Bangkok, Thailand. After a scramble for airplane flights and bus rides, three teams arrive in time for the opening of the Three Spires Pagoda, but one is late after a critical mistake. One team catapults ahead by taking a challenging Fast Forward requiring them to eat stir-fried crickets and grasshoppers. Another team quickly opts out of the Fast Forward and joins the remaining teams for the Roadblock, which requires one member of each team to prepare a traditional feast for monkeys. This proves difficult, as the monkeys are all around and make difficulties in the efforts to craft the feast. After finally completing the task, the teams receive a clue instructing them to take a taxi 90 miles and then travel by ferry to Koh Kret Island. There, at the Buddha Gardens, they choose between a Detour --- Move It or Altar It. The Move It task involves the transporation of 72 clay pots, while the Altar It task requires the teams to make their way on foot to a Buddhist temple and then create a shrine to Buddha. The Move It task frustrates one team and ultimately they are eliminated from the race, leaving the final three.

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Do It for the Hood! Do It for the Suburbs!
star
8.06
145 votes

#13 - Do It for the Hood! Do It for the Suburbs!

Season 15 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/25/2009

The seven remaining teams depart the Souk Madinat Jumeirah pitstop, staying in Dubai. The Roadblock involving retrieving a watch to use to unlock a briefcase and Detours of weighing a half-millon dollars in gold or assembling a dozen hookahs are made even worse by stifling 130° heat. But Mika faces the ultimate test of courage when a six-story waterslide clashes with her dual fears of water and heights.

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It Was Like a Caravan of Idiots
star
8.04
25 votes

#14 - It Was Like a Caravan of Idiots

Season 14 - Episode 4 - Aired 3/8/2009

The eight remaining teams set off from the Vila Panoramic and receive a clue instructing them to fly through Moscow to Krasnoyarsk, Siberia and then travel to the hydroelectric dam depicted on the back of Russia's ten ruble note.

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Sleep Deprivation is Really Starting to Irritate Me
star
8.04
28 votes

#15 - Sleep Deprivation is Really Starting to Irritate Me

Season 9 - Episode 6 - Aired 4/5/2006

The teams take off from their Pit Stop at the Tempio di Segesta and receive a clue instructing them to drive 135 miles to Catania, Sicily and find the Antiteatro, Romano. This theater doesn't open until 8:30 A.M. and B.J. and Tyler jokingly put up an "official" sign-in sheet which is quickly declared a phoney by Eric and Jeremy. As it stands, these two teams are the only ones to make it in at the opening time, as the others find themselves stuck in traffic or confused on directions. After counting heads on the fence surrounding the grounds of the theater, the teams do a Detour --- Big Fish, requiring each member to carry a 17 kilo swordfish 1/3 of a mile, or Little Fish, requiring them to travel 1/3 of a mile to the same market and then sell 4 kilos of small Sicilian fish. The teams then travel approximately 40 miles to Siracusa, where one member of each team does a Roadblock requiring them to score a goal in kayak polo. Finally, they make their way on foot to the PIt Stop, the natural spring Funte Aretusa, and another team is eliminated.

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Do You Know How Much Running I Did Today, Phil?
star
8.04
28 votes

#16 - Do You Know How Much Running I Did Today, Phil?

Season 9 - Episode 9 - Aired 4/26/2006

The teams receive a clue instructing them to travel by plane over 9,000 miles to Perth, Australia. After receiving money from some of the teams (following being stripped of all cash and possessions in the last leg), B.J. and Tyler then make the same flight as everyone else, disappointing them, as they were hoping they might miss it. Once in Australia, the teams travel to the State War Memorial in King's Park and then receive a clue directing them to travel to Rottnest Island via ferry. They then travel on tandem bikes to a lighthouse and then do a Detour. Sand requires them to drag forty large branches to a marked sand dune (a task called "brushing the beach") while sea requires them to search through fifty crayfish traps and retrieve two crayfish (one per member.) The teams then travel to Fremantle Prison where one member of each team takes part in a Roadblock. The task requires them to search inside the unused prison for a Duracell flashlight and batteries. They then travel through wet and dry waterways to locate a clue. It's a close race to the Pit Stop at South Breakwater by the Fremantle Fishing Club and one team finishes literally right behind another. Unfortunately for another team, this Pit Stop is the end.

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I Feel Like I'm in, Like, Sicily
star
8.01
266 votes

#17 - I Feel Like I'm in, Like, Sicily

Season 16 - Episode 10 - Aired 4/25/2010

After noodling their way through their first Roadblock, Teams are forced to complete a second Roadblock, and the fate of two Teams lies in the hands of confused cabbies

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They Don't Even Understand Their Own Language
star
8.00
205 votes

#18 - They Don't Even Understand Their Own Language

Season 16 - Episode 11 - Aired 5/2/2010

The Final 4 teams struggle with the language barrier in Shanghai while sorting through hundreds of golden Buddhas and thousands of Chinese stamps in their pursuit for a spot in the Final 3.

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Good Doing Business With You
star
8.00
31 votes

#19 - Good Doing Business With You

Season 11 - Episode 11 - Aired 4/22/2007

One team is left in a state of shock when they become the victims of a deal between the beauty queens and a certain other team. It’s a comedy of errors for one team when they struggle trying to operate a local car and drive it into the curb.

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I'm Not Wearing That Girl's Leotard!
star
8.00
23 votes

#20 - I'm Not Wearing That Girl's Leotard!

Season 14 - Episode 3 - Aired 3/1/2009

The remaining teams set off from the Pit Stop at the Schloss Hellbrunn in Salzburg, Austria and receive a clue instructing them to travel by train to Munich and then fly 700 miles to Bucharest, Romania.

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I Feel Like a Monkey In a Circus Parade
star
7.99
316 votes

#21 - I Feel Like a Monkey In a Circus Parade

Season 18 - Episode 6 - Aired 3/27/2011

Overwhelmed by a swarming sea of people on the congested streets of India, one team narrowly dodges a traffic collision while another's clumsiness threatens to spoil their chances of acing the Detour.

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We’re Not Meant for the Swamp
star
7.97
149 votes

#22 - We’re Not Meant for the Swamp

Season 15 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/15/2009

The racers end up knee-deep in Estonian bogs, and two teams are neck and neck in their race to the pit stop.

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Don’t Let a Cheese Hit Me
star
7.97
36 votes

#23 - Don’t Let a Cheese Hit Me

Season 14 - Episode 1 - Aired 2/15/2009

Eleven new teams take off on a race around the world for one-million dollars in the premiere of the fourteenth season of The Amazing Race.

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Did You See How I Stopped It? With My Face
star
7.97
101 votes

#24 - Did You See How I Stopped It? With My Face

Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/23/2002

The teams race from Scotland to Portugal, where a fourth pair is eliminated.

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5 Continents...10 Countries...And More than 59 Thousand Miles!
star
7.97
32 votes

#25 - 5 Continents...10 Countries...And More than 59 Thousand Miles!

Season 9 - Episode 12 - Aired 5/17/2006

One team is ecstatic thinking they have a serious advantage when they learn the location of the next destination...a place they’ve been to and where they know the language two teams race in paddle boats that look like ducks during a sprint to the first pit stop of this 2-leg finale.

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