Upcoming travel blogger conferences for 2012

If the word “conference” immediately conjures images of tipsy, poly-suit clad conventioneers, comic book geeks, or coma-inducing workshops, you obviously haven’t attended a travel blogger gathering.

‘Tis the season for some of the year’s biggest travel industry blowouts. Each has a different focus–some are for accredited travel writers, others hone in on the burgeoning travel blogging industry or events tailored for the public. What they all share is an emphasis on networking with industry professionals, travel trends, and continuing education in the form of field trips, workshops, seminars, panel discussions, and yes, a fair bit of partying.

Below, our picks for the best in travel industry camaraderie and information exchange:

Travel Blog Exchange (TBEX)

The year’s most anticipated travel scribe gathering will be held June 15-17 in Keystone, Colorado. Expect a mix of over 350 fledgling and veteran writers, PR and travel industry experts, guest speakers, and workshops. In your downtime, take advantage of Keystone resort and environs by hiking, mountain biking, paddling, fly-fishing, or riding. Psst. Europe TBEX will be held in Lausanne, Switzerland, October 11-13.

New York Times Travel Show (NYT)
Held March 2-4 at Manhattan’s Jacob C. Javits Convention Center, this is a great event if you’re an accredited writer with a specific niche (Industry Professional Sessions include topics like “Focus on Africa,” and “Focus on Travel Media”); there’s also a “trade-only” day. The public and and newbie writers can explore the Exhibition Hall, check out a variety of cultural events to be held on five stages, and let the kids run amok in the Family Fun Pavilion. Bonus: Accredited travel professionals can attend the Friday Exhibition Hall and travel industry welcome reception, and Saturday and Sunday seminars and Exhibition Hall free of charge.

Travel Bloggers Unite (TBU)
Feel like a tax write-off trip to Umbria, Italy (did I just say that)? From April 20-22, this UK-organized conference unites travel writers and bloggers with travel PR experts, tourism boards, and travel companies. Seminars include photo walks and workshops, and using social media. Best of all, delegates will be able take free post-conference tours of Umbria.

Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference

Lonely Planet guru/Gadling editor Don George co-founded this renown industry event with Book Passage owner Elaine Petrocelli in 1991. Held annually at Petrocelli’s Marin County bookstore (located 15 minutes north of San Franciso; the other Book Passage is a tiny shop in San Francisco’s Ferry Building). The event has attracted in the past luminaries such as Tim Cahill, Larry Habegger, and Gadling’s David Farley. This year, esteemed writer Susan Orlean will be in attendance, and the schedule includes four days of seminars, workshops, panel discussions, and optional evening field trips. If you’re serious about travel writing–and few places provide as much topical diversity as the Bay Area–sign up, stat.

Be sure to check out Don’s article on “Top tips for TBEX and other writers’ conferences” before you sign up or get on a plane (they say advice doesn’t come cheap, but this is free, baby).

[Photo credit: Flickr user Dia™]

Presenting Xtranormal’s “I want to be a travel writer


National Parks Conservation Association launches official blog

The National Parks Conservation Association, a non-profit organization whose mission is to protect and preserve America’s wild and historic places, officially launched their new blog earlier this week. The site, which can be found at ParkAdvocate.org, went online just as America’s first Summit on National Parks was getting underway.

As you would imagine with any new blog, content is a bit sparse at the moment, but already filing in nicely. Eventually the site will be home to a wide variety of news stories and features on the parks and NPCA efforts to protect them, as well as photos and videos from those amazing places. The blog already features a four-minute video tour of Yosemite and a great overview of the proposed Lone Star National Recreation Area, which we told you about last week, with plenty more content to come soon.

The blog’s first official post came from NPCA President Tom Kiernan who discussed America’s Summit on National Parks, a symposium that wrapped up yesterday in Washington, D.C. At the Summit, a number of leaders in conservation, tourism, education, and a variety of other fields, came together to discuss the future of the national parks in the U.S. as we approach the 100th anniversary of the Park Service in 2016. The parks currently face a variety of threats, including climate change, pollution, and massive budget cuts, just to mention a few, and the attendees of the conference discussed ideas on how to continue to preserve America’s wild places for future generations to enjoy, while meeting those challenges.

Judging from the attendance numbers – which continue to rise to historic levels – travelers see the value of protecting the national parks too. Now, thanks to this new blog, they have a tool for staying connected to parks and staying informed of the efforts to protect them.

Is the Travel Blogger Show worth your time?

The market for travel blog conferences is quickly starting to saturate, with the Travel Blog Exchange, Travel Bloggers Unite and the Travel Blogger Show now available for any wayward writer looking to network and learn more about the blogging community. Remaining this year is the Travel Blogger Show, an arm of the The Trade Show (largely geared for travel agents) that’s held in Las Vegas this September 11th.

Knowing full well that a blogger’s budget is limited and that quality and relevance matter, I took a moment to ask David Appel, CEO of Tripatini and show organizer about some differences that TBS might have over TBEX or TBU:

How is the Travel Bloggers Show different than TBEX?
“Tripatini as an online travel community and blog attracts a much broader, more inclusive audience than TBEX, to begin with – we’re not just bloggers but also travel industry and regular travel enthusiasts, from basic backpacker to hyper-luxe. Add to that the fact that our other main event co-sponsor is the American Society of Travel Agents, which brings a lot of travel trade into the equation and lets us take an approach that speaks not just to all those fun and doughty characters we’re so fond of in the travel blogosphere — along with those who want to be them — but also business people, public relations folks, and more.”

What can aspiring writers hope to learn at TBS?
“We’re aiming to provide a little for everyone, whether you’re a blogging newbie or a seasoned veteran. We had a great lineup at our first conference last year in Orlando, including the likes of Chris Elliot, Matt Kepnes, and – well, Kim Mance of TBEX, as it happens. And this year we’re shuffling the deck a little, with not just Gadling on board but also stars like George Hobica of the highly successful AirfareWatchdog and Wil Klass of SpotCoolStuff. They’ll be offering their own takes on what every blogger needs to do or do better, such as SEO and monetization; finding new audiences; taking it viral; how to best use blogging as a business person to promote yourself or your clients; and how to survive and even thrive in the fast-evolving blogosphere of the future.”

So there you have it, TBS delineated in two succinct ways. Come out to visit your favorite bloggers — we’d love to see you.

[flickr image via Laser Guided]

How to make travel editors like your blog

One of the biggest takeaways from the Gadling NoFF happy hour last week was an idea of how many indie travel blogs there are out on the web at large. It’s a great way to get visibility and practice as a travel writer, whether one is just starting to get into the industry or is an experienced, global contributor. In some cases, a personal travel blog can be a place to collect all of your work, where potential clients or employers can get a good idea of what you’ve produced. Heather Poole, our resident flight attendant and social butterfly keeps up a great blog where she dishes on some of the daily flight attendant buzz and links around to her book, Gadling and the community.

Travel blogs can therefore be a resume of sorts, and many editors (including myself) like looking over the personal websites of potential writers to gauge writing ability, technical prowess and general voice. Often times, we peruse sites daily irrespective of pitches to find a good fit for our sites. That’s how we found adventure blogger extraordinaire Kraig Becker. His work with The Adventure Blog is unparalleled in its market — and was a perfect fit for Gadling when we brought him onboard.

That’s why one of our biggest tips when we talk to new or aspiring writers is to start a travel blog. It’s a good way to get practice in the writing world, get nestled within the community and start building up product. As David Landsel, editor of the New York Post travel section puts it:

I like to see that they’re speaking like an actual human being — a lot of bloggers are afraid to be authentic because they don’t want to get blacklisted by the places they want to cover. Fearlessness is one of my favorite qualities in a writer.

Naturally, every editor has his or her own ideal style, but there are certain aspects about every blog that need to be buttoned down to give us the best impression. Here are some of the things that you can focus on:

  • Formatting and typos. Obviously. But this is huge. If I’m flipping through a page of blog entries and there’s an easy grammar error in one spot or a misaligned picture in another then it’s a sign that the blogger isn’t paying attention. And if the blogger can’t get his or her blog right, then the trust can’t carry over to a public blog.
  • Voice. The blog medium is intrinsically opinionated, and how you direct this voice can make or break your site. Frommer’s Senior Online Editor Jason Clampet elucidates:
“I like a blog with both an expert voice and personality. Blogs like Cranky Flier and Chris Elliott’s are a great example of this. They give you information you can act on, as well as personalities that make them open to their readers.

The line between personality and self-absorption is pretty thin and few travel bloggers end up on the right side of it. I have no need for the ‘I did this then this then this’ and ‘I’m flying on an around the world ticket during my year off’ blogs. Might as well make that blog private between you and your poor parents. There are very few amateurs who can pull it off; most anyone who’s successful has a background in either the travel industry or as a reporter. I love a good hotel insider blog written by an anonymous manager or a solid tourism blog written by a tourism & marketing corporation minion. Ex-USA Today editor Chris Faust falls into the reformed reporter camp. She’s really smart about the blogging platform, but her content is so good she could get away with a Blogger.com account.”

  • Blogger v. Tumblr v. WordPress v. Custom. The level of intimacy that you have with your html is a reflection of your tech savviness. If the best blogging technology that you can use is Twitter then you have a lower chance of figuring out how to embed customized text or graphics in a corporate Content Management System (CMS). Conversely, if you’ve hand coded some wicked music robots into Tumblr then you have a good chance of being able to master even the slightest, dark corner of blog technology.
  • Dynamic embedding. These days, most CMSs have marginally strong means for embedding customized photos or video. But what about that random video from National Geographic that doesn’t directly link into WordPress? What about that audio file from NPR with a custom width that won’t properly fit into your page frame? Showing that you have the ability to manipulate your main vertical with a broad range of multimedia components is a strong step towards expert blogging.
  • A broad range of content. We get it. You work for the sexiest gear provider in the west and 80% of your posts, despite your independence, are sourced from that spot. That’s not a big deal. But you need to demonstrate your ability to cover your content from different angles. There’s narrative posts. There’s links to other sites. There’s reviews. There’s discussion posts. Changing angles is a good way to keep your content fresh and your readers interested. The ability to do this as a blogger is important.
  • Experience. Again, David Landsel:

“Like any topic, the more you cover it, the better you get. I want a writer to have been traveling extensively for at least a few years before I start taking them seriously. It’s not their fault they’re green — it’s just that their opinions are less interesting when they have less to base them on. Just put in the work and learn all you can, as fast as you can. When I think of some of the sweeping statements / hearty endorsements I made early on as a travel writer, I laugh (and also cringe.)

  • Social media presence. It’s great to have links to your content out on Twitter and Facebook — to a degree. If you’ve got a good modest presence in social media and you aren’t spamming your identical content out on feeds every 45 minutes, we know that you understand the value of community engagement and can apply your skills on a corporate level. And as social media takes the front seat in much of the traffic generation on the web, that skill is more and more important each day that passes.

Have we adequately convinced you of the OCD nature of travel editors? Great news. Now get that travel blog rolling!

Where are all the travel guide apps for Android?

Nearly two years ago, I bought my first smartphone: the T-Mobile Android MyTouch*. I’m only occasionally jealous of my iPhone-carrying friends, as I find few travel guide apps for Android. Even after a move to Istanbul, I still use and rely upon it daily; Android‘s interface is fast and easy-to-use, and seamless use of Google applications like Gmail and Google Maps is part of the reason I bought it in the first place. Living in a foreign country means English-language books and magazines are expensive and hard-to-find, and like many travelers, I don’t want to carry bulky books around when I’m on the road. This leaves a perfect opportunity for mobile developers to provide real travel guide content and not just travel-booking apps, especially apps produced by reliable media sources with professional editorial. These days, every guidebook and travel magazine publisher is coming out with apps for the iPhone and now iPad, supplying users with content and directions on the go, but there are hardly any for Android.

So what’s available for mobile travelers from the top travel book and print sources? Better hope you’re running Apple OS…Guidebooks:

  • Fodor’s: Happy 75th Birthday Mr. Fodor, but we wish you had more than just five city guides for purchase (in London, New York, Paris, Rome, and San Francisco) and only for Apple.
  • Frommer’s: iPhone guides are available for ten major cities in the US, Europe and Asia, but nada for Android.
  • Lonely Planet: iPhone users are spoiled for choice: dozens of city guides, language phrasebooks, audio walking tours, and eBooks optimized for the iPad. Android users in 32 countries including the US are in luck: there’s a free Trippy app to organize itinerary items, as well as 25 “augmented reality” Compass city guides and 14 phrasebooks. NOTE: This article originally mentioned that the Compass guides were unavailable in the Android Market store, but they should work for most US users. I happen to be in a country where paid apps are not available and not shown in the Market.
  • LUXE City Guides: 20 cheeky city guides work for a variety of mobile phones, including iPhone and Blackberry, but none are compatible with my Android. Bonus: the apps come with free regular updates and maps that the paper guides don’t have.
  • Rick Steves: If you are headed to Europe, you can get audio guides for many big attractions and historic walks for iPhone, plus maps for the iPad. You can also download the audio files free for your computer, and props to Rick for mentioning that Android apps are at least in development.
  • Rough Guides: Here’s a new one: the Rough Guides app works for many phones but NOT the iPhone OR Android! It’s not as slick as some of the other guides (it’s a Java app) and you will use data to use it on the road, but it provides lots of info for many cities in Europe. You can also find a Rough Guides photo app on iTunes to view pictures from around the world with Google Maps and captions from Rough Guides.
  • Time Out: City travelers and residents might want to look at the apps from Time Out for 5 European cities and Buenos Aires, with Manchester and New York on the way. More cities are available for free on iTunes, search for Time Out on iTunes to see what’s available. iPhone only.
  • Wallpaper* City Guides: 10 of the design mag’s 80 city guides are for sale for iPhone for Europe, Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles.

Print media:

  • Conde Nast Traveler: It makes sense for magazines to embrace the iPad, and CNT has free Apple apps specifically for Italy, cruises, and their annual Gold List of hotels and resorts. Blackberry users can download an etiquette guide, but Android users are snubbed.
  • National Geographic: As befitting any explorer, Nat Geo has a world atlas, national parks maps, and games featuring their amazing photography, all for iPhone. A special interactive edition of National Geographic Traveler is for sale on the iPad; you can also read it on your computer. Androids can download a quiz game and various wallpapers; and all mobile users can access a mobile-friendly version of their website at natgeomobile.com.
  • Outside: Adventure travelers can purchase and read full issues on the iPad, but no subscription option yet.
  • Travel + Leisure: The other big travel glossy also has an iPad app for special issues. Four issues have been released so far with one available now on iTunes (romantic getaways) but future editions will follow to be read on the app. Just in time for spring break and summer, they’ve also released a Travel + Leisure Family app with advice and articles specifically geared towards travel and families. The apps are both free but you’ll need an iPad – these are designed for tablets, not phones. You can also read full issues of T+L and their foodie cousin Food & Wine on Barnes & Noble’s NOOK Color ereader; you can save per issue if you subscribe to the e-reader version.
  • USA Today Travel: Most major newspapers have mobile readers for all types of phones, but USA Today is the only one with their own travel-specific app. AutoPilot combines an array of cool travel booking capabilities and information with articles and blog post from the newspaper. Only iPhone users can enjoy free.

Two of our favorite magazines, Budget Travel and Afar, have no mobile apps yet but great online communities to tap into their extensive knowledge.

All in all, other than Lonely Planet’s Compass guides, a pretty weak showing for Android travelers. While iPhone has been around longer as a mobile platform that Android, they’ve lost the market share of users to the little green robot. As Android is available on a variety of phone manufacturers and providers, expect that number to continue to grow, along with the variety and depth of content for mobile and tablet users. Will the developers ever catch up or will travelers have to choose?

*Android has not endorsed this or paid me anything to write about them. But to show I’m not biased – Apple, feel free to send me a sample phone and I’ll test out the apps!

Photo courtesy Flickr user closari. Special thanks to Sean O’Neill, who blogs on Budget Travel and the new BBC Travel blog.