A New York State of Mind- getting ready for #TBEX

Someone on Twitter once said #Tbex10 was the Travel Bloggers Woodstock- in a way it is. Travelers all around the world are taking a break from their travels, and are heading to New York City for a travel blogger conference on June 26-27th. TBEX’10 stands for Travel Blog Exchange 2010 and this is their second year of hosting the conference. Last year their first annual conference was in Chicago. I found out about the conference two days after it ended, I was wildly disappointed to have missed it.

Once I found out it was hosting in a city I have never been in- I was elated. To meet all of my amazing travel blogger friends and visit a new city? It was too good to be true.

Now of course the road to getting to #Tbex was a tough one. In no time all the tickets were snatched up before I could order one. So I registered for the waitlist knowing that the chance of getting a ticket was slim. An opportunity came up to get tickets via twitter- I immediately ordered the tickets. Now, I got the tickets, what next? The following weeks were busy, I was traveling back and forth between Boise and California. I barely had time to sit down and actually research flights and hotels. Originally my sister was going to come along, and help interpret the seminars at TBEX. She had gotten a new puppy, and now had to drop out of the trip. Leaving me with no interpreter. Now I was in frantic rush to figure things out fast- the event was merely a week away. I had no flight, no hotel reservations, and no interpreter. Finally, fate intervened my aunt generously stepped in and decided to take time out of her busy schedule and come along with me to the event and help translate. Then I found a great deal on a flight, despite the long layovers via CheapOair.com. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they had the option of putting down “Deaf Passenger” on the order page- which notifies the airlines that there would be a Deaf person flying. I am interested to see how that pans out when I fly out this Friday.
Now I had to tackle the last piece of the puzzle- Hotels. It is no secret that Hotels in New York are insanely expensive, it is hard to find a bargain. I searched all over the Internet, Priceline, Orbitz, Tripadvisor, Kayak, Hotels.com, etc to find a reasonably priced hotel. No such luck, even if I did find a place it would be entirely booked for the weekend I would be NYC. I was incredibly frustrated, I had no place to stay. In a moment of frustration I turned to twitter- which was a lifesaver. Radisson Lexington offered me a room at a reasonable price, they were incredibly helpful. Amazing how things fall into place- and once again Twitter proved to be helpful in trip planning.

TBEX is in a couple of days- I am excited to meet everyone, to network, to sightsee and I cannot tell you how nervous and anxious I am!

See you at #Tbex!!

For more information about #Tbex- check out their website! http://www.travelblogexchange.com/