Julia and I were packing up our stuff and setting out on the greatest experience of our lives: our seven-month, 20,000-mile road trip across America.
We are going to take this opportunity to remind ourselves that we still have to finish our "best of" posts and reflect upon our amazing time. Thanks again to everyone who helped us out as we went along!
I’ve just upgraded this thing to WordPress 2.5.1 and the newest version of the K2 theme! I love the changes, but there is still a lot of work to be done.
We are going to go back into every single post and add tags to them (this is also partially why we have taken so long with our “best of” posts, we want to re-read everything before we write them). The “where are we” link still exists at the top of the page, but I need to do some code work to get it back onto each and every post again. We are also going to add/update the links section of this blog and also our new blog. Expect to see links to our friends and other related stuff!
Finally, some of you may not even be able to view this post right now. In the past, people could go to EITHER roadtrip.brettmickelson.com OR brettmickelson.com/roadtrip and see the same page. Now, for some reason, you can ONLY view the blog at roadtrip.brettmickelson.com. I am working on resolving this issue as quickly as possible.
Everything else should work fine or better then ever! Check out the new search function, which will display your results as you type them!
I’ve assembled a collection of 51 photos that I think are my favorites from the trip. You can view them by clicking here. What do you guys think? Which ones have I missed? Which don’t deserve to be there? I am looking for opinions!
I am going to investigate the possibility of showing these photos at galleries in the area, a daunting possibility.
Just a quick note today in an attempt to fill in the gap in my post to our new blog.
At 1:30 p.m. I met with Christine from Area, an emerging travel website. We had initially met at the New York Times Travel Show and took the opportunity to sit down and discuss how we may be able to help each other. We talked for about 90 minutes and I felt that things were quite productive and positive. It seems to me that if Julia and I can pinpoint specific stories, towns or activities that would best lend themselves to Area’s market and format, we should have no trouble contributing in one way or another.
I’d love to go into more detail, but it’s already after 4 a.m. and I could use some sleep.
We haven’t forgotten about our “best of” posts, either!
Julia came with me to the New York Times Travel Show today, which was great. We arrived just in time to speak with Mike, an associate editor at Fodor’s. He had some advice for us and gave us his contact information. We also attended a seminar on travel writing that was given by Max Hartshorne and Kent E. St. John from Go Nomad and Matt Link, an established travel writer and editor. The talk was very informative and they spent a lot of time answering questions, which was nice. Afterward, we spoke briefly with all three of them along with Ericka Hamburg, a writer/photographer who was in attendance. Despite being a busy day, everyone was happy to hear our story and offer their honest advice.
We did have a little time to explore the travel show as well. Julia especially loved seeing the penguins and sloth at the Busch Gardens / Sea World booth and the Cayman Islands booth brought back memories of when her family used to visit every year.
We weren’t able to spend as much time at the show today as we would have liked because we had to catch the 7:07 p.m. train back to Darien, but we are glad we were able to attend the show and it was a productive experience for both of us.
Be sure to keep checking in with our new blog for other stories and photos and keep checking back here for our “best of” post(s) which should be coming as soon as we finish re-reading every single post from the trip.
Here are a few photos from today. Click “there’s more to this” to see them all.
A penguin at the Busch Gardens / Sea World booth. Continue reading
The New York Times Travel Show was intimidating at first. I received my press pass from the front desk around 11 a.m. and spent 30 minutes or so getting oriented in the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. My mission was twofold: to simply experience and photograph the travel show itself and to spend time talking with people in the travel industry (specifically travel writing and photography) about a possible career in the field or the possibility of publishing a book about our trip. I think I succeeded on both fronts.
At 11:30 a.m., I listened to a 90-minute talk by Reid Bramblett, the creator of ReidsGuides.com. He discussed the basics of maintaining a travel website to a group comprised mostly of members of the Society of American Travel Writers. He was scheduled to speak again at 2 p.m., so I spent some time cruising the show grounds. Things were still being set up for the public opening tomorrow, but I did have the chance to photograph the ribbon cutting ceremony at 2 p.m. As soon as the ribbon was cut, I hurried back to Reid’s seminar on more advanced website theory. The crowd was smaller this time around, but just as engaged. After he wrapped up his talk at 3:30 p.m. or so, I spent a few minutes speaking with him and a few other people from SATW or other organizations before making my way back out onto the show floor.
I did get to talk with a few organizations on the show floor as well, but most of the people I will want to talk to won’t be at the event until tomorrow, so Julia and I will be sure to go back. I haven’t shown the portfolios to anyone at the show yet, but there should be an opportunity or two to show them off tomorrow.
Meanwhile, here are a few photos from the show today.
The ribbon cutting.
An ethnic display at the show.
A sloth at one of the booths.
Sorry for the delay, but I wanted to wait until I was able to upload the interview before making this post.
Our interview went very well. We were on the air on Monday, February 18th from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., during which time we discussed the basics of our trip. An hour seems like a long time to talk about something, but we could probably blab about our experiences for a whole day without running out of material. Instead of writing out a story about the interview, I will simply post the interview in MP3 format.
Please note that the recording begins five minutes into the interview. We want to thank WHUS for having us on the air, it was a lot of fun.
Now, we are working on our “best of” post(s), which should be up in a few days. We are being very thorough, reading every post to make sure we don’t miss a thing, so be patient and keep checking in. Also keep an eye out for our experiences at the New York Times Travel Show on Leap Year weekend!
Here are some photos from the studio!
Julia in the studio.
“Deirdre,” our interviewer.
Tomorrow (Monday, February 18), we are going to be interviewed on the UConn radio station, 91.7 WHUS! We will be in the studio and on the air 1 p.m. You can listen online at the WHUS website and feel free to call in and ask us questions!
I will post the interview on here after we’ve been on!
First of all, be sure to check our new blog! You can click the link to the right or just bookmark blog.brettmickelson.com. We’ve begun posting there and hope everyone who visited this blog will check the new one!
Also, we would like to know what your favorite photos have been from our trip. Please look through the posts or my SmugMug and comment with your favorite photos (be sure to say what the photo is of and what day it was from). We would really appreciate it!
While we continue working on our “best of” post(s), I have a few updates and things of interest to post about.
First of all, we are going to be interviewed on the UConn radio station, 91.7 WHUS! We will be in the studio and on the air next Monday, February 18th, at 1 p.m. You can listen online at the WHUS website and feel free to call in and ask us questions!
Also, we will be attending the New York Times Travel Show on Leap Year weekend. We are looking forward to documenting our experiences there and also hoping to meet people from throughout the travel world. In particular, we are looking forward to a seminar on travel writing, but I’m sure we will be overwhelmed by hundreds of booths and travel professionals. Hopefully, we will be able to learn a lot from the experience and also walk away with contacts and ideas that will help us in the future.
If things go well there, we may consider other travel shows in the future. There are two massive travel writers conventions in San Francisco later this summer that would be great to attend, especially since we are hoping to publish our story. The first is the Ultimate Travel Writer’s Workshop and the second is the Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference. These are just ideas for now, but if things work out, they could be good resources for us.
