In late June, I attended the Travel Blogger Exchange (TBEX) conference in New York City. I had the chance to meet and mingle with hundreds of other travel bloggers, in addition to travel PR folks. It was a great motivator, and I came away with new ideas and inspiration. It was also a ball to meet so many of the travel bloggers (especially Gary Arndt!) who, up until then, I had only interacted with online.
I was livid that there was no free WiFi at the venue (technical problem or something), was bothered that so many of the bloggers formed and stuck in tight cliques, and felt like there was too much emphasis on partying. But it was only the organizer’s second year, so I should give them a little slack. It was a fun event, and I have faith that next year’s will go more smoothly. Here are a few of the photos of myself and other travel bloggers from that weekend! The first four were taken by TravelBlogExchange.com (they are not too flattering of me!), and the other three are from my camera.
Me with Alyson of Hop and Jaunt:
- Me with Jessica Parker (left) and Melanie of Travels with Two (center):
Me talking to Jeanine Barone of J The Travel Authority:
Me with Jackie Swift and Caroline Eubanks of Caroline in the City
Me with Nomadic Matt: 
Me with Stephanie Yoder of Twenty-Something Travel:
Me with Christina McFaul of Journey 360 Degrees and Natalie Taylor:
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It is interesting, I have read the same type of reviews on many blogs. First it seems it was a social gathering, and the instruction was just so-so, well bloggers will not give out their “secrets” on how to get mass traffic or market their blog to make money including the SEO tricks.
Did Gary explain how he markets to get the high numbers, nobody else is even close.
But I like what you wrote “bothered that so many of the bloggers formed and stuck in tight cliques, and felt like there was too much emphasis on partying”
Happy I skipped the social gathering. But I am sure it was nice to meet many travel bloggers in person.
From many blogs I have read it seems like some people were disappointed, but I could be wrong.
Seems like most people used it as a chance to meet up with their groups online offline, and didn’t really use the opportunity to network further with people they may have missed online.
It was so great to meet you after all this time! If you don’t mind me asking- where did you find the pictures Travel Blog Exchange took?
@Shawn: Yeah, it wasn’t organized too well, but it’s only their second time to do the event. Though the fact that they left us standing in the summer heat for nearly 40 minutes on the first morning was inexcusable in my opinion (it started late and was so hot). I hope they work with professional event planners for the next one. And nope, Gary didn’t talk about how he does so well. He goes on press trips but doesn’t seem to take ad money–I think because he sold a company before he began traveling. Nomadic Matt tried to give some tips in the SEO/monetization, but they tried to cram in too much in too little time for that session, so he barely had time to say anything. He did mention that he’s done well selling eBooks and asking fellow travel bloggers to swap links (especially contextual links).
@AdventureRob: Yes, it definitely did seem to be more social than for networking. I was there primarily for networking, and I certainly did accomplish that, though not as much as I wanted to. I wished there was more time for that (and that more people were open to it–some people were rude to me because they wanted to just stick in their cliques and didn’t seem interested in meeting new people). Most of the social gatherings were loud parties. Again, something I think they are planning to change next year (I think there will still be loud parties–just more opportunities for networking).
@Stephanie: Yes, so happy to meet you, too! The pics are here: http://www.travelblogexchange.com/photo/photo/listForContributor?screenName=2cf9y5s9j4g03
It was great meeting you in the whirlwind that was TBEX! John and I were guilty of partying too much
ha ha NY virgins and all we were very excited to just roam around… but it seemed that I kept staying places longer trying to meet more people and it just never ended. We did have a blast meeting the people that we did, as for the heat in the morning…we didn’t know our cell didn’t update the time and was late by an hour every day that weekend!! I guess for next year I need a better plan of attack, I was a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of people that were there and by the third day had a hard time keeping track of people I knew online, people I just met for the first time, people I didn’t know online but met yesterday…est. est. I got about a hundred cards but still trying to put faces/names/blogs all together!! We missed out on the discount tickets as we stayed in NYC for an extra week but hope to pick them up in Nov so hopefully we can meet again in Vancouver!
Cool — it’s fun putting a face on all of these folks!
Aly–how funny about the time being off! I was thrown for a loop as well, since my phone time updated but my laptop didn’t! And I know what you mean…by the end, I was getting everyone mixed up. It was weird–there were some people I kept seeing over and over again, but other people that I heard were there, but I somehow never saw! Anyway, glad you guys had a fun first time in NYC! Hope to see you guys again in Vancouver!
Yeah, I wish I had taken out more time to meet people other than the folks I just talk to all the time online, but really, there’s not enough time! Next year though, I’m going to make more of an effort to meet people.
Cool to see all the pictures of bloggers. It’s like reading a book, you know—I had these whole images constructed, and turns out they’re not so close to reality!
@Candice–Yeah, I really hope that next time everybody isn’t as cliquey and is way more open to meeting new people! I hate cliques. They remind me of high school
Nothing wrong with finding a cool group of folks and hanging out with them, but it seemed that some people weren’t welcoming of others within their little group.
@Lauren–I know, it’s funny seeing people outside of their little Twitter or Gravatar photo! I didn’t recognize some people at first because I had previously only seen just one or two pics of them online. It was really cool to meet these folks in 3D!