Narrative, Local Beer & Hockey: What I Learned at TBEX

This past weekend, I flew out to the west coast to attend the Travel Blog Exchange (aka TBEX) conference – a full two days of workshops, lectures, & networking with all my colleagues in the travel blogging world. Since I work in PR in my “real job,” I’ve attended a lot of conferences, but this was my first travel related one, & my first time attending a conference because I actually wanted to. Some lessons I took away…

On Vancouver:
It would not be an exaggeration to say that Vancouver is the most beautiful place I have ever visited. Snow capped mountains, pristine water & bright blue skies. As an added bonus, the weather was a gorgeous 62 degrees & sunny. Every street you turned down offered a new view: a cruise ship in port, a ski run lit up high in the night sky, a “Go Canucks Go” banner (more on that in a minute). Vancouver is high on my list of places to return to as soon as possible.

On hockey:
As an American, it is impossible to equate the love that Canadians have for their national sport to anything we have. Hockey to them isn’t like winning the Super Bowl. It isn’t like winning the World Series. It isn’t like Team USA winning a gold medal. It’s like all those things, combined, times 5,000. The passion that I saw coming from the 100,000 Vancouver Canucks fans who took to the streets on Friday (before, during & after the game) was something I’ve never seen before. The revelers were happy – ecstatic – &  even though their vuvuzelas, car horns, &  general screams of jubilation kept me up until around 2am, I couldn’t possibly be mad at them… their excitement was too infectious*

On my fellow travel bloggers:
What an impressive group of travelers gathered this weekend! Every niche of the travel blogosphere was covered – & then some – & the networking was worth the price of admission alone. Having the opportunity to meet so many passionate, enthusiastic people who I have had an “online relationship” with for months now was great fun. We are a group of huggers. Both the women & men. Lots of screeching, “OMG, it’s” & massive hugs at the Friday night kick off party.

Also: our men have really good hair. Yup, looking at you Andrew & guy-who-plays-everyone’s-favorite-spokes-squirrel-on-Twitter.

Shout outs to some of the many awesome people I met**:
Erin  De Santiago
Brett Domue
Andrew Evans
Irene L.
Jennifer Lichty
Kymri
Matt Long – previously met super great DC traveler
Nancy Sathre-Vogel
Stephanie
Paul Thompson
Sonia Zamborsky– previously met super great DC traveler

& everyone else I am forgetting – hey, the brain is still on Vancouver time!

On writing:
The single most beneficial workshop for me the entire weekend focused on narrative writing. Since my blog is a lot of non-narrative writing (travel tips, top 10 lists, etc. vs story telling), this is a skill I’m trying to improve. Workshopping a piece that I wrote rather quickly curled up in a chair at the convention center (& promise to share here in the next couple weeks) was incredibly fulfilling & the constructive criticism immensely helpful. A shout out to the legendary Don George, the motivational Pam Mandel & one of DC’s own, Mr. Good Hair, Andrew Evans, for leading this most excellent session.

On food:
Oh Canada, you do not disappoint! In honor of my tried & true rule of not eating at chain restaurants while traveling, I lived it up with some seriously awesome local food. Nutella crepe. Local beer – a lot of local beer – from Granville Island Brewing. Fresh salmon. Tim Hortons coffee & Timbits (fact: the number one best thing about living in Ohio is that they have Tim Hortons. It is also the number one thing I miss about living there). In addition, I can’t wait to blog about my chef-led tour of Granville Island Public Market. It was one of the highlights of the trip.

On travel:
There is nothing that wasn’t adventurous about my travel both to & from Vancouver. Heading there, I spent nine hours (!) sitting around various Washington, D.C. airports hoping to catch a flight that wasn’t horribly delayed. After being proactive (& extra nice) to a customer service agent, I scored a window seat in an exit row for my eventual direct flight out to Seattle. Having missed my originally booked train from Seattle to Vancouver, I was able to book a new ticket using my Blackberry, while riding Seattle’s light rail out to the train station from SEA-TAC. The train ride was absolute bliss (& definitely deserves its own blog post).

Getting back was less waiting & more running – after a red eye flight from Vancouver to Chicago O’Hare, I ran through Customs & Border Control, & then through the B terminal, to my gate. I was the last one to board my flight (the look on the faces of the suit-wearing business travelers as I stumbled onto the plane in jeans & a tee-shirt was priceless). But if part of traveling isn’t deal with delays, being creative when things go wrong & making an idiot out of yourself running through the airport, I don’t know what is.

*written as I’m sit here in my new Canucks t-shirt
**in person. We’ve been online BFFS for quite some time.