END OF SUMMER BLUES!

The end of summer and early fall is always a busy time.  There is the Virtuoso Travel Week at Bellagio in Las Vegas where we meet with over 4000 of the brightest hotel general managers, tour company owners and fellow top notch travel advisers from around the world.

After a week of 4 minute sessions and learning classes, I returned to Florida totally exhausted.  I can't imagine how the suppliers must have felt after saying the same 4 minute speech for 8 hours and 4 full days of meetings. I just had to listen.

Next is Travel Mart Latin America which will be held in Cartagena, Colombia in Sept.  Here again, I will meet with some of the most important tour companies and hotel owners/managers for 3 days so I can find the latest and greatest in South & Central America.  Colombia you say?   Yes...Colombia!  I am not afraid as it is a very calm place right now and very beautiful.  "The only thing to be afraid of is not wanting to go home" is their tourism catch phrase.

Both of these meetings are indispensable for consultants like myself.  As you well know, I am off at every chance I get to see new hotels and historic hotels....new tour products and new adventure opportunities so I can share them with those of you who like to travel like I do.

I am not Miss Deluxe and Modern....but rather am after the most authentic experience I can find and also where I can go and relax at the end of the day with a good glass of wine in a quiet refuge that is not too grand nor to big so that I just become a number.

In October I am off to Guatemala and Belize...this time a meeting of sorts as I travel with a small group of professionals to discover all that is new and delightful about this wonderful little country in Central America. 

Guatemala has suffered "a bad rap" in recent years which started with fear by locals that Americans were taking their babies for adoption in the US without approval of the mothers.   That was a long time ago...but unfortunately, Guatemala has never been able to stage a comeback.  Hopefully that will change with invitational visits such as the one I will be making.

I feel like such a stranger to my home at this time of year and much more comfortable with the inside of a Delta Airlines 757.  Oh well....such is my life.. TSA check points,very bad airline food, boring long flights to get to the places I go and airport stop overs and airline clubs where I try to get some work done.

In the end, I wonder what it is like to travel for pleasure?  For me a vacation is staying home.  Maybe some day it will be the other way around.  Bur for now I wouldn't change a thing.