TBEX in Vancouver.

If you’ve read my previous post, than you know how excited I am for this weekend. The new Vancouver Convention Center set the scene for a weekend of travel blog panels. Located right on the water and surrounded by beautiful glass buildings, it’s no wonder this area gets coined ‘City of Glass’. It reflects the water and scenery from the north shore mountains and adds to the green steps the city has taken to purify and celebrate nature. (The conference center’s roof is even topped with grass!)

Inside the conference walls, travel bloggers are introduced to each other by their twitter names and screams and laughs are shared as we finally meet all our friends who we’ve *known for so long. PR reps and tourism board officials are mingling and everyone is happily talking travel. It’s the beginning of the event- everyone is pumped, ready to be fully immersed in the wonderful world of travel blogging.

There are big fish bloggers, new start-ups and a bunch of people in the middle trying to figure out how they can have a piece of the travel blogging community. (Secret exposed- We ALL can!)

We discuss ideas of how to increase our reach, disagree about what makes a blog work, and break down the tools of the trade, and best techniques.  Not all the talks go off without a hitch, but there was definitely something to take home from each of them. Even if it was just a good twitter sound bite!

No matter how much we differed on our approaches, the sponsored parties really accentuate the one uniting factor of most travel bloggers / nay all people, we love free booze.

The first night ended with “The Men of TBEX” calendar shoot and party hosted by Diamond PR, followed by a smaller group of bloggers rehashing the days different panels. A late night makes for a very early morning!

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX781XYUsQk