Two weeks ago I attended TBEX, the Travel Blogging Exchange. This may sound nerdy to some of you readers, but I dare you to find a better opening party anywhere. Let me know when you’re popping bottles on your own private beach.

TBEX is a massive two-day travel blogging and media conference that takes place twice a year in different parts of the globe, and this spring it happened to be in the Costa Brava, Spain, a one-hour bus ride from my front door. Literally, people fly for 36 hours to attend these things, and I could have hitch-hiked if I had the balls. Naturally I was going, even if the term SEO still terrifies me, and hearing mention that Snapchat is now becoming a viable social media tool inches me every day towards Luddite-ism. But I’d heard about TBEX from the Bloghouse workshop I attended in Chicago, and it seemed like a great way to network and learn more about the industry.

I was worried to attend this conference. I’m always wavering on whether or not travel blogging is really for me. Two things in this world that currently have my ripping out my own hair:

1) Caring for other people’s babies (unfortunately, as I do it on a daily basis) and

2) Reading endless blog posts with a “Disclaimer, this hotel hosted my stay and wined and dined me and actually put 100-dollar bills in their Kleenex dispensers ‘as an added touch for this review,’ but all opinions expressed here are my own.” Also unfortunate, because I read that crap all too regularly now and it makes me slightly weary to break into that travel blogging “scene.”

But I’m happy to report that TBEX Costa Brava was fabulous, thanks in part because it was such a perfect reunion of both virtual and real-life blogging friends, and because we were literally showered in free food all weekend long. And by literally I mean figuratively BUT CAN WE DROP THAT ALREADY.

1 of 13 billion typical Catalan appetizers served at the opening party

But apart from the friends, it was also just a really well-run conference with a perfect balance of professionalism and free spirit (read: bloggers bonding over Spanish wine). It revitalized me and inspired me to keep chugging along, mostly because I still love writing, not Snapchat.

Here are a smattering of words, life lessons, takeaways, and quotes overheard at TBEX 2015 Costa Brava:

Takeaways from a weekend at TBEX Costa Brava:

Goal #1

Get a good camera.

Everyone raves about the quality of the iPhone camera. Everyone who isn’t a professional travel blogger and writer. When people are not only photographing sweeping views of the Mediterranean but also their very own conference badge with their DSLR, you know it’s finally time you stepped up your picture game.

(Now quick, no one look at any images on this site until I’ve updated my gear.)

Pro Tip

Catamaran rides along the Costa Brava can make you seasick. Beer on board a catamaran can help you forget the fact that you’re a hypochondriac and are actually not prone to seasickness, you just have a fear of getting seasick.

With my blogging twin Anne of Part Time Traveler aboard the catamaran.

Aesop’s Fable Moral of the Story

Be Nice. Be Yourself. If yourself doesn’t suck.

I randomly started talking to someone near my table at the opening party (he was probably impressed that I fit 7 plates of appetizers on a bar table the size of an LP record) and when he told me he was the lead representative for a huge luxury hotel company in the Costa Brava, I did the opposite of any skilled networker at this place: I dropped my guard. Why? Because what would a luxury hotel brand want with A Thing For Wor(l)ds? I blog about baby snot, among other things. So I was just regular ol’ Jenny (which to my credit = pretty damn fun) with him, not trying to suck up to him so that we could work together and he would comp me some resort stays.

And guess what?

He took my card and reached out to me later for more of a writing-related project, because we had such great, natural conversation, and he liked the idea behind my blog. I won’t say all the Catalonian wine didn’t help make me more personable, but it helps to remember to drop the schtick and just be real with people. (Also, um, can I get that free resort stay now?!)

This could be a metaphor for supporting one another through hard blogging times and such. But really it was a Catalan castell, or human tower, at the opening party.

TBEX Newbie Lesson Learned

Use Speed Dating if you’re prepared, and don’t be ashamed to skip it if you’re not.

The point of  the speed dating portion of the conference is to directly approach brands you might be interested in partnering with. In sad yet totally typical Jenny’s-late-to-the-game fashion, I didn’t realize you had to sign up beforehand for speed dating, so I had exactly zero appointments. On the first day I napped, and on the second I darted in to talk to a few people without any formal appointment, and actually made at least one great contact. This very contact happened to tell me over drinks later in Barcelona that there’s nothing she hates more than an unprepared blogger in speed dating asking every company, “So, how do you work with bloggers?” Which, my friends, is exactly what I would have said had I happened to have any appointments. So in an oxymoronic twist, my dropping the ball may have saved me from appearing unprofessional, and now I know for next TBEX: Make the appointments, but do your homework and come ready to the meeting to make a lasting impression.

Personal Self Discovery

I like nice things.

(There, I said it.)

I backpack around Europe, occasionally sleep on airplane floors, and have been known to eat lentils out of a jar for dinner. But that’s not on principle, people, that’s called a budget! Once they exposed me to bigger and better at this conference—I’m telling you, it was a world of luxury—my recurring thought was, “I could get use to this.”

I thought it when a private boat took me to a private beach for a private opening party, and I thought it again when the wine didn’t stop flowing. I thought it when waiters were offering me individual cups of gazpacho a mere 25 minutes after I had just eaten a catered, white tablecloth lunch. I thought it when I ate three mini blackberries served in a porcelain shotglass, and I thought it again when I sailed by a medieval castle on an all-inclusive catamaran ride.

Opening party at TBEX Costa Brava

Travel bloggers aren’t known as the highest people on the totem pole. But I’ll be damned if they didn’t trick us into feeling like we were.

All of these niceties seemed like a direct contradiction to the laudable theme of the conference, which was “Don’t become a blogger just to get things for free.” I am worried about my own ability to take such pleasure in a small porcelain presentation of berries. How will I return to hostels and jarred lentils?

Groundbreaking Realization

You guys exist!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I DON’T WRITE INTO A VOID. I HAVE READERS AND YOU GUYS REACHED OUT AND SAID HELLO AND TOOK SELFIES WITH ME AT TBEX. YOU TAPPED ME ON THE SHOULDER AND SAID “I RECOGNIZE YOU FROM YOUR BLOG!” Other things were probably said, but I fainted before I could hear them.

I don’t know how Kate Middleton deals with the fame, because even 3 seconds of it went to my head. I was suddenly very aware of the need to appear as the person these people may have imagined behind the blog. I do hope I didn’t swear as much as I tend to in real life. Except I had a continual IV of wine in me so there goes those good intentions.

You guys made me feel like this. As did the beer on board the catamaran.

Some Final Words

You probably didn’t learn as much about the actual TBEX conference as you could from this post, but that was deliberate. Also, probably bad editing. But the point is, if you’re interested in the travel writing world, I highly recommend attending a TBEX for yourself!

And now I leave you with just a few #FirstWorldProblem and #BitchingBlogger quotes, of which I miraculously overheard many fewer than I was expecting at the conference:

“What?! Our rental house doesn’t have internet? I’d rather not have a bathroom than have the internet go out. I can go 7 days without a shower, and about 7 minutes without Instagram.” –every blogger was probably thinking it, but my bestie Anne had to be the one to say it.

“I don’t have an appetite for this mediocre hotel banquet because I basically eat Kobe Beef for a living.” –Food blogger. Of course.

“This conference seems really unorganized, but we’re really just here to get free hotel stays, so not too disappointed.” –Someone I hope never to become.

“What’s the best way to write about a place on my blog that I’ve never been to?”–woman asking advice from NY Times travel writer David Farley. His answer: “Um….try NOT doing that.”

For any fellow bloggers are interested in attending a future TBEX conference, there are TBEXs coming up in Bangkok, Fort Lauderdale (Florida) and Stockholm. I’d highly recommend it, and if you see me at a future one, please come up and say hi!! (I’d love to faint again.)

About The Author

Jenny

Jenny Marshall studied Language, Culture, and Society at the University of California Santa Barbara, and now teaches English in Spain. Here she writes about the intersection of language and culture, and lives a life translated by travel.