Tyler MacNiven, 25, who grew up in Woodside, and partner BJ Averell finished in first place in the May 17 season finale of CBS' round-the-world competition, "The Amazing Race."

Their challenges included skydiving, bungee jumping, scaling a building, and building a Greek statue, to say nothing of gulping down bowls of stir-fried grasshoppers and panhandling in Australia.

The prize? $1 million dollars.

In the final event Tyler and BJ, who lives in Los Angeles, found themselves going against rivals Eric Sanchez and Jeremy Ryan on a snow-covered field in Colorado. One member of each team had to run through a field with 285 flags and find the flags of the nine countries they traveled to on the 59,000-mile race. Then, that member had to line up the flags in the order they visited the countries.

Eric and Jeremy, who were dubbed the "frat boys," were well ahead of Tyler and BJ, but couldn't get the order right. BJ cracked it on his first attempt and he and Tyler raced first to the finish.

Tyler knew he had won the prize last December, but couldn't share the news until last week when he and other contestants were flown to New York City for the season finale. His mother, Margaret, older brother Dylan, grandmother, aunt, and girlfriend, Ayumi Meegan, were there to, hopefully, help him celebrate. Ayumi's mother even flew out from Japan.

Tyler's dad, Buck's restaurateur Jamis MacNiven, stayed home. "Someone had to stay to feed the dog," he says. Mr. MacNiven, who doesn't own a television, watched the show at a neighbor's.

After attending CBS' celebration party, Tyler and BJ were up early to make the rounds of the talk shows, appearing on "The Early Show" and "Regis and Kelly." When we talked to Tyler Friday, he was hoarse from three hours of radio interviews.

Tyler and BJ, known of the show as the "hippies," garnered lots of fans. Blogs called them "funny and quirky," "hilarious and entertaining to watch," "intelligent and courteous," and "true gentlemen." Some bloggers dissented, however, calling them "attention-grabbing" and "pretentious prima donnas."

Many pitched the idea of the boys appearing on a travel show, such as "Globe Trekker" on PBS.

Tyler and BJ met four years ago during a Semester at Sea program, where they shared the experience of sailing around the world.

Tyler graduated from UC Santa Cruz after completing two semesters abroad, one in Hungary, the other in South Africa. BJ is a graduate of Harvard University. Both have traveled the world and speak several languages. After his stint in the local spotlight in 1998 while campaigning to get into Stanford, Tyler became a bit of a celebrity in 2004 in Japan when he walked the length of the country. He covered about 2,000 miles in the 145-day trip.

Tyler took video footage during his adventure in Japan and made a documentary recounting his experiences. He identifies himself as a filmmaker and already has a future project in the works ... a documentary entitled "Kissing Castro." He intends to walk the length of Cuba culminating in a visit to Fidel Castro's office, where he hopes to plant a kiss on the Cuban leader's cheek.

Meanwhile, he and BJ are going to spend the next few months "exploring media opportunities" and are meeting with agents in Los Angeles.

His future will definitely be involved with travel. He's already been to every continent, except Anarctica. "This is an amazing world and I want to show it to America," he says.

While Tyler pursues his career, his brothers have plans of their own. Rowan is moving to Tahiti and older brother, Dylan, is opening a new restaurant, the Woodhouse Fish Co., at Market and 14th Street in San Francisco with his dad as partner. "We're going to specialize in fast-food lobster," says Mr. MacNiven.