Travelbloggers at BlogHer

This coming weekend is the BlogHer conference, a huge gathering of women (and yes, some guys) with opinions and Internet connectivity. About a month back – I think it was a month back – I’d finally made up my mind not to attend. There are a bunch of small complicated reasons – my dislike of large crowds, a program that doesn’t resonate with me, too much girly girl stuff on the edges. That’s all my point of view, your mileage/interpretation may vary and all that.

The bigger reasons, the ones that ultimately kept me from booking a flight were simple. The only travel event on the schedule is a 40 minute meet-up. Combine that with a price tag of about 800 dollars. That’s with my contributing editor pass – those who write for the site get to attend the conference for free. A nice perk, truly, given the 300+ fee. I have, without hesitation, ADORED (in all caps) meeting my fellow travelbloggers, but I think you understand that 800 dollars to hang out with you for 40 minutes is a little steep.

Lately, I am enjoying the company of local bloggers and those passing through Seattle for much longer than 40 minutes with a price tag of under 20 dollars. That’s about the price of treats and coffee for two at my favorite French bakery. And yes, yes, yes, I get it, I totally get it. There’s the networking and the swag and the new friends. But don’t tell me you can’t put a price on it, because I did the math, it’s about 800 dollars, okay? Slightly more than two months of health insurance. A month of camping, even with gas prices being so high. A decent chunk of what I owe in next quarter’s taxes. Etc.

Yesterday, I spent some time on the phone with Pat, marketing manager from Uptake, a new travel search engine. They blog, too, and would like to connect with the travel bloggers attending the conference. For some crazy reason, they decided they’d like to sponsor my trip to San Francisco! (Insert lots of stuff about how overwhelmed I am by their generosity here.) Uptake wants, in a nutshell, for me to introduce you to them (say hello, people) and to find out what you, travel blogger, would find interesting, useful, and worth your money to pay for at travel events. Here’s are the big three questions from them.

1. How can we build more community for  travel bloggers?
2. What other communities do travel bloggers participate in that we could emulate?
3. If we were to create a travel blog meet up with other conferences, in a more organized fashion, what kind of program would they like, would they attend, would they pay for it?

In spite of Uptake’s offer to sponsor my trip, it’s still unclear if I’ll be at BlogHer. Here’s the deal: BlogHer is sold out and I’m not sure I can get in. Yes, I’m supposed to get a pass because I’m a contributor to the site, but I don’t know if they gave that slot away. The other thing is that as a contributor to the site, I’m not sure what kind of conflict of interest issues might come up. I’m sure I’m not the only contributor that’s got the chance to attend on someone else’s nickel. so I’m hoping the BlogHer administrators have ready to go answers to my questions on this. I don’t think it’s an issue, but I honestly don’t know.

Unfortunately, this amazing opportunity didn’t fall into my lap until yesterday, so there’s also the last minute-ness of the whole thing. Booking the travel seems highly possible, getting answers from the organization on the weekend before the conference is a little harder though the longer I have to wait for answers, the more difficult the last minute travel becomes.

An update: I was both surprised and not surprised that BlogHer nixed my last minute attendance. I realize that the conference is sold out and that there’s a waiting list, but I guess I thought that as a long term contributor to the site, they’d find a way a to get me in. My mostly silent mate said this: “They’re shutting out one of their own.” I’m going to try to see this as a purely by the numbers decision, but I suppose I was hoping they’d have the equivalent of standing room or staff seats at the theater, or a stack of VIP/screw-up passes just in case. Though I am clearly more of a screw-up than a VIP.

Regardless of if I make the conference, I’m excited to learn that more and more people are interested in what’s happening with travelblogging and what we want from it. I’m psyched to see that travelblogging matters to not just crackpot individuals like me who can’t shut up about their last awesome trip, or their next one. Actual growing companies want to serve you, travelblogger, and yes, take your money, of course, but travel costs money, that’s no secret.

There is still that travel meet-up at BlogHer where you’ll get to meet Suzanne,  Debbie, Pat, and maybe Nancy and MaryJo – I think they’ll be there, will you? You should go! And hey, if I’m not there there’s always hooking up right here in Seattle. If you are here already, you should come to our upcoming panel on travel at the Adventure Travel Expo, (me, Mary Jo and Beth) plus, bonus, you can go for free, that’s right, free, because I’ve got the secret code for passes.