#BAcon3
Last weekend I, and many of my TravelUpdate and BoardingArea brethren, descended on our capital city of Washington, D.C. for the third iteration of the BoardingArea Conference. At BAcon, many bloggers, travel industry executives, and experts shared their perspectives and knowledge. As a new blogger, it was an invaluable resource. I took many excellent notes, and left with a renewed vigor for writing and sharing my experiences.
I thought about writing a traditional review, but felt comfortable that many of the other attendees would do the same, so here are key things that I learned.
Three Fresh Strips of BACON
The top three takeaways from BAcon, for me, are below. These were the ones that stood out to me and are spurring me to devote more time, energy, and thoughtfulness towards cultivating this blog, and the readership. They could not hope to capture all the information received from the conference.
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BoardingArea is a Family
The friendliness, helpfulness, and openness of the community and travel blogging family (cliché, I know) was overwhelming. The industry executives want us to grow and succeed (which ultimately benefits them as well). Experienced bloggers showed incredible warmth when sharing their knowledge, regimen, tips, and tricks with me and other new bloggers, which will help us flourish. I have been in many areas that pride themselves on collaboration and camaraderie (school, job, etc.), but BoardingArea, BAcon, and the intimacy of the discussions and conversations felt natural, rather than forced.
Write, Write, Write -
Post Post Post
Stay true to yourself, provide your thoughts and unique perspectives, and write like no one is reading (so thank you for reading). It’s a humbling and relieving freshness, when not pushed to write for a specific purpose. Simply write for writing’s sake, and the readership will come. I plan to continue on this path and write to what interests me.
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Success is Not Easy
Study & Work Hard! Listening to the years of toil of top bloggers such as OneMileAtATime or ViewFromTheWing reinforced what we all know. Success requires diligence, perseverance, time, luck, hard work, and endurance. Expect years of hard work for your skills or passions to pay off, if they ever do. Granted, there are people who are natural success stories, but for the rest, keep at it, whether it be learning, studying, whittling, or (for me) writing.
Closing Thoughts
Lastly, I want to give a big, big thank you and shoutout to Randy, Heather, Kristen, and the rest of the BoardingArea Staff for hosting me, the others on TravelUpdate, and everyone else at BAcon. Thank you for helping us grow and develop with the wonderful presentations by industry experts and executives. We are better writers, bloggers, and people because of you. BAcon was a wonderful experience and I look forward to the next one!
Featured Image from Unsplash.
What do you think of my perspective? Have any questions? Let me know in the comments, or reach me directly at TheHotelion@gmail.com! Like my posts? See more here, on TravelUpdate! Follow me on Facebook (The Hotelion) or on Twitter and Instagram: @TheHotelion
Welcome to the BoardingArea family. This was my first BACON, and I agree that it was a very worthwhile experience. I didn’t have the opportunity to speak with you at BACON, but I look forward to reading your future posts. See you at the House of Miles!
Thank you! I agree – very information and insightful. I hope to visit at some point!
I’m sorry to have missed the conference this year (though it worked out just as well, as I also ended up being sick that weekend). It sounded like a lot of fun and knowledge sharing! For what it’s worth, I would NOT want to “write like no one is reading”. Because for me, that would be an ugly mess of unrelated thoughts, run-on sentences, and weird punctuation in places where they don’t belong. 🙂 Frankly, I’d say the biggest challenge — at least for me — is in the editing. It can take me a while to organize all the… Read more »
Completely agree – takes me regularly at least a couple hours to write, edit, format, and complete a post. It’s not so much “write like no one is reading” but more of a “write what you enjoy and write for yourself”. I’ve taken this to heart and do not plan to change how I write or what I write on. For those that enjoy it great, if it’s not for you, that’s okay as well. TGR I wish you well and a speedy recovery! Thank you for reading and for your comment! It’s interesting to hear the perspectives of others.