Girl Trip to New York

I have mentioned Wanderful before. It’s a women’s travel community, but it’s more than that. Wanderful supports women who love to travel, with webinars, chat, and virtual meetings. They also offer global meetups that allow women to get together in various locations around the world to meet other travel minded women. Wanderful offers support to women who are in the travel business, including creators and small business owners. Wanderful supports women owned businesses around the world. They have local hubs in many cities that provide an opportunity for women in the area to spend time together.

Wanderful is the parent company of Women in Travel Summit (WITS).

This is a conference focused on women who are in the travel business. There are workshops and presentations by women who are successful in the travel business.

There are opportunities to build collaborations with businesses. They have an awards ceremony called the Bessie Awards, during which they recognize women who have had significant impact on women working in the travel industry.

I have really been enjoying writing this blog. But, let’s face it. I really don’t know what I’m doing. So I decided to attend WITS this year, hoping to get some tips about this whole blogging thing. The conference was in New York this year. They have a Beginners Bootcamp that I thought would be perfect for me. I signed up for the conference and booked a hotel room. I booked a room in one of the hotels where they had reserved a block of rooms. The hotel was near the conference venue, and, although I could have probably found a cheaper room, I wanted a hotel near the venue since I might be going to New York by myself. I was determined to go, and I knew I was going to have to be brave about traveling by myself in case no one was available to go with me. Thankfully, Sarah was able to go, so it became a girls’ trip!

Sarah was not planning to attend the conference, but she would be there to hang out with me when I was not at the conference.

I have to admit. I was very nervous about this conference. I definitely felt like I did not have enough experience and I was not good enough at blog writing to even associate with these women. I started fretting about this conference from the minute I registered. I read the information multiple times and tried to do everything they suggested. I attempted to memorize the directions to the venue, and the inside of the venue, since I get lost so easily. The instructions included bringing business cards. Business cards?! Is writing this blog really a business? The conference was going to have representatives from businesses with whom attendees could schedule a ten minute meeting to try to get them to hire them or partner with them to advance their business. I knew I was not ready for this step in any way, so I did not schedule any meetings. I did get business cards made, though. I am a rule follower.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them, but I thought maybe I would be brave enough to talk to another attendee and maybe they would ask for my card. Who knew? I also had some stickers that advertised my blog, so I took those too.

I was trying to get into the spirit of things. So, armed with business cards, stickers, and my anxiety, Sarah and I left for New York.

Very funny, Sarah.

The first day was the bootcamp. As I was getting ready that morning, Sarah looked at me and said, “Calm down. You got this, Mom.” Was it that obvious? I took a deep breath, put on my brave face, and set out with my Google Maps to walk to the venue. I arrived at the conference a few minutes later, checked in, and took a seat in the room for the bootcamp. Since a big part of this conference is networking, I should have initiated conversation with some of the women around me. Instead, I sat nervously in my chair and just waited for the presentations to start. I watched as other women sat next to each other and talked, but I couldn’t bring myself to join in any conversations. I enjoyed the presentations and I learned some things, so the day was not a total loss. The next two days, I attended some of the other workshops and I wandered through some of the vendors. I saw the representatives having meetings with the attendees, but I quickly skittered past those. I kind of thought they would be able to tell how inexperienced I was just by looking at me.

Although WITS was a good experience, I should have made more of an effort to meet other women “in the business” and maybe network a little. I am planning to attend next year and hopefully I will feel more confident and make an effort to make the most of the conference.

Sarah and I had a great time in New York. We both love Broadway shows, and I had bought tickets to see Redwood with Idina Menzel.

It was a great show. Then, I saw that Moulin Rouge was playing, and Boy George was playing the part of Harold Zidler!

For those of you who know me, you might be surprised to find out that I was a big Boy George fan when I was younger. I snagged some last minute tickets and Sarah and I were going to Moulin Rouge! I told her I wanted to get there early so we could find where the stage door was. I wanted to get to the stage door after the show to try to get Boy George’s autograph! We located the stage door, and then we went in to watch the show. It was so good! After the show, we hurried to the stage door area. They had it roped off, so we could only get so close. We managed to get right up to the ropes. As we were standing there, a guy came and squeezed himself up in front of us, saying, “I’m here!” I don’t care where he was, as long as he was not standing in front of me, who was already “here.” I think I said something super aggressive, like, “really?!” Sarah, on the other hand, had much more to say. I pleaded with her to not get us arrested, since I really wanted to see Boy George, so she backed off. Then Boy George came out. I was so excited, but I couldn’t really see him very well because of the “I’m here!” dude that was in front of me. “I’m here” got his autograph, and then Sarah said to him, “Hey, my mom has been a Boy George fan for over 40 years. Could you move now so she can get his autograph?” To his credit, “I’m here” moved aside and let me get up to the rope. I had my playbill ready, and I was going to try to get a picture with him, since I saw that he was letting people take selfies with him. I snapped a few pictures of him as he was making his way around.

Just when he got near enough that I could hand him my playbill, this very tall, very excited lady behind me started screaming and jumping up and down. She was hitting me in the head with her IPAD when she jumped. I heard Sarah say, “Hey! You’re crushing my mom!” By this time, I was using my hands to cover my head rather than handing my playbill to Boy George. Sarah plucked my playbill out of my hand and gave it to Boy George, so I did get his autograph.

Boy George said, in his awesome British accent, “Someone needs to help her.” I don’t know if he was talking about my physical safety or this lady’s mental health, but either one applied. I started to leave and Sarah asked me if I was going to try to get a picture with Boy George. I had given up on that idea. I just wanted to make it out without a concussion.

Sarah and I did some other New York things while we were in town. We visited Chinatown.

Neither Sarah or I have any sense of direction, so this little trip into Chinatown was a bit of a challenge.

As we were standing on the sidewalk trying to figure out the GPS directions on our phone, a man drove by and said, “The roads are like spaghetti, aren’t they?” That was a good description. But I’m a little concerned that he noticed how confused we were. We did manage to do a little shopping,

and we had some delicious fruit that was covered in some sugary syrup.

The Wanderful women were having a meetup at a restaurant that night before the Bessie Awards. We attended the meetup and enjoyed visiting with the women for a little while.

The next day, we took the ferry to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. We enjoyed visiting these famous sites.

This is Sarah’s reaction to crowds.

We had some really good food while we were in New York. Sarah told me that I should always take pictures of my food first. Good luck with that. I don’t really get that excited about pictures of food in blogs, although it seems to be a thing with bloggers. I actually have a hard time remembering to take pictures of people. I’m trying to get better about the picture taking, but hopefully anyone who is with me will be willing to share their pictures with me. Sarah regularly reminded me to take pictures of my food, so I did get a few. This was from a really good breakfast/brunch place that Sarah found. It was called Hole in the Wall. We both had a smoothie, Sarah had coffee and mushroom toast, and I had hot chocolate and avocado toast.

There. I posted pictures of food. I think that makes me an official blog writer.

I really enjoyed my trip to New York with Sarah. I had been to New York a few years before with my husband (stay tuned for a story about that trip), but that’s one of the great things about traveling. Each trip is different and wonderful in its own way. We had a great time and, like most trips, I can’t wait to go back!

Tips:

1. We booked our tickets for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island through Statue City Cruises. Go to http://www.cityexperiences.com.
2. There are a number of ways to book Broadway tickets. A lot of times, if I know the name of the show I want to see, I just google the name of the show, adding “New York” and some options to buy tickets will pop up. Other options include newyorktheaterguide.com, or http://www.broadway.com. Also, if you know the name of the theater, you can google the name of the theater and buy tickets there. Example, for the Al Hirschfeld theater, you can find tickets at http://www.alhirschfeldbroadway.com.
3. I recommend the Hole in the Wall restaurant for breakfast or brunch. It is an Australian cafe. The food was good and the service was very friendly. Their address 15 Cliff Street in Manhattan. There are a few more locations in New York.
4. Be sure to have your GPS if you visit Chinatown.
5. Apparently, the workers for the train that goes from New Jersey to New York were on strike while we were there. This information does not seem like it would have affected us. But it did. Not having the train as an option meant that there was much more car traffic in New York, which meant that an Uber ride took much longer than usual. This caused me to have some anxiety about getting to the shows on time. You might want to check on things like that before your visit, so you can plan accordingly. I wish I had.
6. If you are in the travel business, from blogging to entrepreneurs to business owners, you should consider attending WITS. It is a great way to meet other women in the business (although you do have to be brave enough to initiate conversations), and they have workshops and presentations that are full of great information.