Plan your next adventure using your taste-buds as your compass!

Want to combine your three favourite things: travel, sport and food? Now you can with our Ten of the Best list of the year's best food-related sports around the globe.

If you think you can hurl cow dung like a champion, eat more hamburgers than all other competitors, or sail a boat made of beer-cans to victory, then these sports will definitely get your blood pumping!

Taken from Lonely Planet's A Year of Sport Travel.

January - The Great Fruitcake Toss - Colorado, USA
The Christmas gift that keeps on giving: fruitcake can be hurled (by hand or pneumatic device) for distance or accuracy. Fruitcakes are categorised by weight, and must not contain anything inedible. There's also a fruitcake relay and even a fruitcake art show.

February - Battaglia Delle Arange (Battle of the Oranges) - Ivrea, Italy
Anyone can take part. Just get in early to enlist in one of the sides. If you're a spectator, in theory you're safe from an orange attack. In reality, keep your eyes open for flying oranges and watch your footing on the sea of fallen fruit. Three days, 3500 people, two sides, 400,000kg of oranges, and a whole lot of pulp. The beautiful old town of Ivrea, 35km from Turin, celebrates the town's history with an annual carnival, the incontestable highlight being the Battle of the Oranges.

Taking place in the town square, this gigantic food fight is inspired by the story of a miller's daughter who, during the Middle Ages, rebelled against the evil ruling tyrant after he had proclaimed the right to sleep with any woman about to be married. The refusal by the miller's daughter sparked a revolt by the entire town, which is now re-enacted annually.

Today, carriages represent the duke's guard (who rode through town in horse-drawn carts) and the orange throwers represent the rebellious townsfolk (who pelted them). Anybody can take part by enlisting in one of the nine orange-pelting teams or, if tyranny is your thing, becoming a member of a carriage crew.

Why oranges? Well, originally people threw beans. Then, in the 19th century, girls started throwing oranges at boys they liked, who would throw them back if they in turn liked the girl. Many a romance may have been lost due to a boy's true feelings not being revealed through his simple distaste for oranges.

Spectators are not permitted to throw oranges. Red-hat wearers are considered part of the revolutionaries and are not to be targeted. So, enlist in a team and warm up your throwing arm, or stand back, marvel at the spectacle and look out for errant flying oranges.

April - Cow-Chip Throwing Championships - Beaver County, Oklahoma, USA
Who knows what the early settlers might have thought of the annual Cow-Chip Throwing Championship being held in their honour, but considering the role the humble chip played in American history it seems a fitting tribute. Arriving in the west, settlers found a drastic shortage of wood or fuel on the vast grassy plains. They soon discovered the benefits of the cow chip - a dried out chunk of cow dung - and began burning them for cooking and heating. Leading up to each winter, townsfolk would harvest the chips and compete (now, this is where things start to get interesting) by throwing them into the back of carts from a great distance.

Beaver County's welcoming slogan of 'No Man's Land, Everyone's Town' sums up the community's positive spin on one of the world's more curious sporting events. Started in the 1970s to boost the town's profile, it soon took on a life of its own. Beaver County is now home to the worldwide chip-throwing community. Local attractions include the town mascot, a cow chip with a crown and sceptre, and a giant beaver holding a cow chip. The tournament is open to everyone and occurs on the third weekend of April as part of the Cimarron Territory Celebration.

Activities over the weekend range from carnivals and a chilli cook-off, to team 'roping' and old-fashioned church revivals.

So don't be shy, the Cow-Chip Throwing Championship is a chance for people from all around the world to get together and 'chuck a chunk of moo poo!'

May - Cheese Rolling - Cooper's Hill, Brockworth, England
You may have thought the most dangerous thing about cheese was the mould, but then you've probably never stood atop Cooper's Hill on this mad Monday. The premise is simple: a handmade, 7lb circle of Double Gloucestershire is rolled down the hill and a gaggle of people give chase: rolling, sliding and stumbling their way down behind the cheese. The first to the bottom of the hill (or to grab the cheese) wins, and gets to keep the cheese. Which does nothing to explain the mud, the slippery grass, the slope and the injury toll.

A 200-year-old tradition (though a wooden cheese was used during rationing after WWII), it is unashamedly a cheesy event, but it draws around 5000 spectators and an international cast of competitors, with Australians and Kiwis seeming to do particularly well.

The course for the event is a swathe of grass cut through the forest on Cooper's Hill. The slope is at times vertical and at some lesser moments has a 50% grade. The idea may be to run after the cheese, but for most, it means falling, rolling and tumbling down the hill. And even if you catch the thing, it's a whole other matter to grab it while simultaneously trying to defy gravity. Each year competitors are injured - sprains, strains, broken bones - with the toll even reaching 33 wounded in 1997 (police cancelled the event in 1998 in response). And yet, runners return, competing year after year.

The first cheese is rolled at noon and there are five downhill races, 20 minutes apart. At a count of 'three', the cheese is rolled and competitors lurch over the edge on 'four'. Between each of the downhill races there's also an uphill race in which competitors claw, grope and strain to the top of Cooper's Hill.

July - Naadam - Ulanbaatar, Mongolia
Naadam (full name Eriyn Gurvan Nadaam) is a centuries-old tradition that is a celebration of 'manly sports' - although women participate in all but one. What began as a ritual to honour the gods of the mountains, turned into a recruitment exercise for Genghis Khan, and one helluva festival for visitors to attend.

Perhaps the most quintessentially Mongolian event is the horse racing, a tribute to the animals used by nomadic herders on the Steppe. The proceedings begin with around 1000 jockeys (aged between fi ve and 13) shrilling a song to calm their horse. After the heated gallop across the plains, the overall winner is commended with a song. The loser is consoled with a kind of encouragement-award ditty.

Music is also an important part of the archery event, with contestants singing to their arrows to implore a straight trajectory, while the judges sing their commentary. Archers use horn-and-bark bows, and arrows made of willow branches and vulture feathers.

Wrestling is the only game in which women do not compete. The wrestlers' open fronted jackets were supposedly designed to out female infiltrators after a woman pretending to be a man toppled her opposition. Costumes also include not-so-macho silk briefs and knee-high boots with twirly toes. Aiming to make a part of their opponent's body (other than their feet or hands) touch the ground, the contestants vie for the grand titles of nanchin (falcon), zang (elephant), arslan (lion) and avarga (titan). The loser removes his jacket and ducks under the bulging arm of the victor who performs an 'eagle dance'.

As much a part of the festivities as the official sporting events is the unofficial downing of bowls of Mongolia's beloved airag (fermented mares' milk). Opening and closing ceremonies include a parade, mock battles, dancing and a guard of honour in traditional uniforms.

July - Beer-Can Regatta - Darwin, Australia
Darwin has taken a battering in its time. It was the only Australian city bombed during WWII (in 64 separate attacks). Then, on Christmas Eve 1974, Cyclone Tracy levelled 60% of the city in just six hours. Construction workers and builders from across the expanse of Australia came to help rebuild. Now, tradesmen have a reputation for beer drinking anyway, but when they're not accustomed to Darwin's tropical conditions, the consumption goes up. The by-product of which, apart from a lot of headaches, dry mouths and sleep-ins, was mountains of empty cans. A local resident came up with the solution to the litter problem: build boats out of them, and hold a regatta.

And it's been providing Darwin-dwellers an excuse to drink ever since. Today's race attracts up to 30 'boats', each capable of holding four crew members. And if building a boat from beer cans that actually floats, let alone holds four people, isn't worth travelling to Australia's tropical north for, how about boats that reach up to 12m in length and have additional novelty value (because being built from beer cans is clearly not novelty enough), resembling Viking ships or crocodiles - the latter of which inhabit the very waters on which these flimsy vessels perch (or not, depending on their seaworthiness).

Other events on race day include a soft-drink can race for children, a thong-throwing event (a 'thong' in these parts being a flip-flop, as opposed to underwear) and the boat-carrying regatta in which contestants run their 'boats' along the searing sands of Mindil Beach.

August - La Tomatina (Tomato Throwing) - Bunol, Spain
For one morning a year, the small town of Bunol dissolves into the world's greatest tomato fight. Some 140 tonnes of the squishy red beauties are trucked in for the running battle, which is concentrated around Plaza del Pueblo and attracts 30,000 visitors. La Tomatina began in 1945, possibly as an anti-Franco protest or simply as a food fight between friends.

September - World Gurning Championship - Egremont, England
Every year, the Egremont Crab Fair celebrates the harvest in staunchly traditional ways. The fair does 'not involve the mechanised swings and roundabouts that became part of so many fairs from the late 19th century.' It opens with the Parade of the Apple Cart, where crab apples are thrown to the crowds, then proceeds with the games, including the World Gurning Championship, in which contestants have to pull their ugliest face with their head stuck through a horse's collar.

September - Krystal Square Off Hamburger Eating Competition - Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
Perhaps slightly familiar to those from big families - where meals require speedy eating before siblings snatch the better morsels - competitive eating is a big deal. In fact, some competitions are so fervently contested that the queasy are advised to stay away. Competitive eating is particularly popular in the US, which boasts a number of governing bodies, including the International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE).

Most eating competitions are dedicated to a single foodstuff, such as hotdogs, hamburgers or chicken wings. Competitions require competitors to stuff as many of said foodstuffs down their gullets in the allotted time frame. Vomiting, known in the trade as 'a reversal' is permitted, as long as it doesn't leave the competitor's mouth.

Eating competitions come from the small-time local comps held at county fairs, which usually involved that area's main food product, such as watermelons or cherries. It's not surprising then that many of the 'major league' eating comps are sponsored by food outlets. The Krystal Square Off is one such event, organised by the Krystal hamburger restaurant chain. The current world record holder is Joey Chestnut who consumed 103 small square hamburgers in eight minutes, in 2007. It's a harrowing eight minutes for spectators, as a line of competitors stuffs tray upon tray of burgers into gaping mouths. There's no time for chewing, just the occasional swill of liquid. The Krystal Square Off purse is a healthy US$50,000 - which'll surely buy more than enough antacid.

September - Mountain Cheese olympics - Galtur, Austria
The antithesis of competition eating, the Cheese Olympics focus on handmade products from small local producers. Around 90 dairies from all over the Alps enter their cheeses in the Olympics, which are judged according to category (soft, hard etc). And, as cheese-tasting is hardly a spectator sport, all producers make their products available for tastings and to buy.

This is an edited extract from A YEAR OF SPORT TRAVEL. Lonely Planet Publications, 2009. AUD$34.95.

For more information on Lonely Planet, visit the Lonely Planet website.

Book your trip