It seems like we were just getting excited about going to Spain and now TBEX Europe is a thing of the past. It came and went, and in between there was plenty of great food, opportunities for learning and to do business, and plenty of fun. But don’t take our word for it, read what others are saying. (And while you’re at it, why not register for TBEX 13 in Toronto.)
Here’s what you’re saying about TBEX:
- I’m on Spanish TV
- 5 Ways TBEX Could Have Been Better
- Catalunya Castell Human Towers
- Postcard from Girona, Spain
- Success as a Travel Blogger
- Word Press at TBEX Europe
- What Can 350 Bloggers at TBEX Teach?
- The TBEX Girona Sessions
- Live at TBEX Europe
- TBEX Girona, the Pyrenees and Beaches of Costa Brava
- Destination TBEX
- TBEX Europe: Blogging, Medieval Castles, and Endless Ham
- Von Reisebloggern, mongolischen Knochen und dem spanischen Willy Wonka – die TBEX in Girona
- My Thoughts on TBEX Girona
- Things to Think about after TBEX
- TBEX Conference – Girona, Costa Brava Spain
- Marketing, manipulation and authenticity: lessons learned at TBEX
- TBEX Girona 2012 Slideshow set to Spanish Pop
- Girona, Spain: Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.
- TBEX: Reisebloggen wird professioneller
- About TBEX Europe…
- Travel Blogger Conference TBEX 2012: SWAG
- #TBEX in Gerona – A Wrap Up
- I got my 1st tattoo ever at the annual TBEX circus in Girona this year.
- Making friends around the world
- I came, I saw, I kissed ass…
- TBEX From a Newbie’s Perspective
- Costa Brava in an Instagram
- A newbie in TBEX: a catalan impression
- TBU or TBEX? Travel Blogging Conferences
- Review: TBEX in Costa Brava (this post also appeared on the Lonely Planet blog here)
- Girona – Das geheime Herz von Katalonien
- TBEX EU Keynote – This Week in Travel #124
- Palate Perfeccion
- TBEX Europe Offers A Taste of Spain
- Costa Brava in Photos via Instagram
- In BIG pictures: Girona and Barcelona
- TBEX Does Europe
- Sopar Inaugural TBEX Europe Costa Brava 2012
- Photo Essay from around Costa Brava
- Girona – For Ever In My And Other Travel Bloggers Hearts
- Post TBEX Reflections
- TBEX – Girona, Spain
- Facing my Fears – Hot Air Ballooning in Costa Brava, Spain
- TBEX Speed Blogging Competition Results
- Remember how I told you I was invited to a party in a Castle in Spain?
- El celler de Can Roca 2nd best restaurant in the world
- Case study #inCostaBrava campaign – Podcast interview with Jaume Marin
- Costa Brava, Spain’s Northeast Coast: Getting There
- So, you want to go to Spain’s Brave Coast? Seaside L’Estartit
- Medieval villages along the Costa Brava of Spain: Begur
- TBEX Europe – Been there, done that (Travel bloggers exchange)
- Through the lens: Girona, Spain
- Flavors of Catalonia
- Bacon Wrapped Bananas & Other Discoveries in Girona
- Dalí! Amazing Museum: Adventure-a-Day #20
- What I REALLY Learned at TBEX Europe
- TBEX12 in Girona, Spain
- All-in-One Month: A TBU, TBEX, & Danish Experience
- Travel Blogging: Viable career or self-congratulatory flautence?
- TBEX Europe 2012 in Review
- A week in Costa Brava: initial photos
- Gaudi in “Context”
- Five Things I Never Knew Until TBEX Europe 2012 In Costa Brava
- Europe vs USA: Does it Really Matter? A Few Post-TBEX Thoughts
- Some place to deserve a second chance
- Old Town Girona in Catalonia, Spain for Historic Travel
- Hotel Balneari Prats TBEX 2012 Blogtrip
- #TBE12 vs #TBEX Girona: Italy beats Spain 4-1
- Girona. More than a six-letter word near Barcelona while booking a Ryanair flight.
- Solo Female Travel Tips from Adventurous Kate
- Getting to Know Girona
- Why Attend a Travel Blogging Conference: TBEX Castle Party
- Girona a medieval revelation
- Rocambolesc: could it be Spain’s finest ice cream parlour?
- Takeaways from TBEX
- Girona. Barcelona. David. Goliath?
- An Alien Universe
NOTE: We will be updating this list regularly. Have you written a post-Girona review, wrap-up, photo essay, or anything else related to the conference? Leave a comment below with the link, send us a tweet @TBEXevents, or let us know on the Facebook page – we want to hear your feedback, and we want to share your posts with other TBEX blog readers!
Thanks for including me, good sports that you are! When all is done and the debris dusted off, it was a very pleasant experience and I met a crapload of cool, interesting, people. If you’ll have me, it would be kick ass to do it all again soon!
We couldn’t NOT include you, good sir, even if we had to (ahem) modify the title a bit for our list. 😉 Many thanks for your insights.
Now we know that for all your bluster you are just a big pussycat. =p.
It was a pleasure to have you be a part of the conference Will and I really enjoyed meeting in person. Next event, we will have to get you a kit had have a jam session with Pam and her Euk!
Wow. With two or three exceptions, no one is addressing the actual conference content at TBEX Europe. Just the parties. What does this say about the overall conference?
Posts are still coming in – several people are still in Spain on post-conference trips – so I’m going to give it some more time first. 🙂
I did write about the whole experience, Karon 🙂
Conference, there was a conference? :-). Still writing my review…
That’s right Crazy sexy fun traveler, it was an experience and for me a journey.
Hello all. I’m stil in a Costa Brava adventure. I spent two nights at the beautiful Parador de Aiguablava (such a view!), then left for another hotel which the Costa Brava board didn’t quite reach and they were full. They kindly arranged a different hotel – Silken Sant Jorge – and a car, which came to fetch me. This was impressive all by itself as the Hotel Del Teatre is in the approximate middle of nowhere. Anyway, Silken took me in unexpectedly and Teatre will have me tomorrow. Nice people.
Wrote a long piece today on travel blogging for newbies. Will post shortly once my travel snafus get all straightened out and I can catch my breath.
Looking forward to reading what everyone else has posted – and sorting through the 7,125,314 business cards from TBEX. 🙂
Adios!
Anjani
PS – secondary site is http://gnhworldproject.posterous.com
Ah, just saw Karon’s note about conference content. I’ll jump in.
I think the spectacular parties were pretty hard to match in terms of conference content and did appear to have received the lion’s share of planning. I LOVED them. The networking opportunities were excellent.
Re: sessions, I felt, and others I talked to did also, that the sessions were sometimes great and sometimes inconsistent, too few, and perhaps too general or beginning level; more concrete, specific information would have been helpful and I only got that at a session or two. Perhaps more workshop style sessions would be helpful to people and even a poll beforehand so you know the skill level of the people coming.
A major area for improvement is in writing workshops. May I suggest that next time an entire track be devoted to writing, because very few blogs exist (well) without good writing. There seems to be some debate on the importance of good writing but I for one think it’s paramount to great content – even if the writing is in short, bite-sized titles and teasers. The best sessions I went were all based on visual content; the writing bit needs to catch up. Another area of training might be in cultural awareness – there was some pretty shocking behavior on the part of one or two peeps on the after tours who seemed pretty unaware of how not to be that obnoxious tourist. That’s a trait that should not be encouraged in travel blogging.
One last thing. There should be morning as well as afternoon sessions which basically repeat, at least in one afternoon or the other. It was such a bummer to miss so many great sessions!
Two cents.
Anjani
I don’t think there is any debate about the importance of good writing skills. That is a given. It seems to me the debate is about good writing being the only important thing, or if marketing (including SEO), distribution, sales and all the rest are important too.
Hi guys, thanks for a great TBEX. I need a vacaion now!
I just finished my Germans post about TBEX & Costa Brava. The English posts will follow soon on travel-itch.com. Until then, learn some German! 😀
http://as-mediaconsulting.com/2012/09/26/tbex-reisebloggen-wird-professioneller/
http://ichweisswo.blogspot.de/2012/09/warum-das-kleine-girona-richtig-cool-ist.html
http://ichweisswo.blogspot.de/2012/09/pintxos-party-kein-pardon-wilkommen-in.html
Bis bald,
Angie
Thanks for the list of posts, and for including my one with my “marketing hat” on!
I have also now done one about the debate of focusing on writing versus the reality of having to get traffic and the numbers that PR companies and Brands expect before you will get invited on trips or get other forms of revenue called: Travel Blogging: When To Be a Storyteller Not A Travel Blogger that may add to the discussion above: http://www.tipsfortravellers.com/2012/09/travel-blogging-when-to-be-storyteller.html
Will you be doing a post conference survey? Some thoughts if that helps building also on the points that some made above:
(1) This was my first travel blog conference and TBEX. I learnt a lot, made great connections and had a great time. I think it achieved the goal.
(2) Some learning and things for next time:
– Would be great to get some big hitter European keynote speakers (like your USA ones you had this time) to bring a European take on some of the issues. The keynotes were great, but would be good to mix it up a bit with a European flavour.
– Repeat some of the sessions so more can get to the topics. I guess is people use the online system early enough it will flag where the hottest ones will be and duplicate those. Even if a different speaker on same topic if the original does not want to do that?
– Have some case study sessions on (1) how people have built their blogs and how. (2) how big travel brands run their sites and approach travel – like maybe sites like LonelyPlanet. (3) Travel and blogger program case studies.
Again want to say how great this TBEX was. So much so I have already bought my ticket and booked my flights for TBEX Toronto! Well done.
Yes, we’ll be doing a post-conference survey, so keep an eye on your email inbox. 🙂
It was such an awesome experience for this new travel blogger! thanks #TBEX
http://www.pointsandtravel.com/girona-spain-diamonds-are-a-girls-best-friend/
and the castle party…http://www.pointsandtravel.com/remember-how-i-told-you-i-was-invited-to-a-party-at-a-castle-in-spain/
I loved Tbex, It was my first bloggins conference so here are my posts:
http://tourismwithme.com/a-newbie-in-tbex-a-catalan-impression
http://tourismwithme.com/el-celler-de-can-roca-2nd-best-restaurant-in-the-world
Hope to come to next TBEX in Europe!
Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed the conference. 🙂
Thanks, Meritxell! I’m glad you enjoyed your first blogging conference experience. 🙂
I wanted to say a huge thank you to all the organisers – TBEX and Costa Brava tourism. The event was very well organised and I enjoyed the sessions – learned a lot, the timings were very good and we had plenty of time to get to know each other.
I have not included a lot of information about the conference on my post, as it is not relevant to my readers – a brief mention was enough 🙂
Once again, thank you all and look forward to the next TBEX Europe event
Thanks so much, I’m really glad you enjoyed the conference! We’ll be soliciting your feedback on the conference itself via a survey, so you don’t need to worry about posting it on your blog. 😉
Loved it! We were newbies, but felt right at home among so many great like-minded people. Here’s a pictures post from our trip: http://www.globalgrasshopper.com/destinations/europe/big-pictures-girona-barcelona/
I’m so glad to hear you felt at home – I’m biased, but I love this community… In part because they’re so welcoming. So I’m glad you felt that. And those photos? Gorgeous!
Would be great if you could include my podcats interview with Jaume Marin about Costa Brava http://www.mybloggingjourney.com/incostabrava-podcast-interview-jaume-marin/ Thanks
Got it, Heather! Great interview.
[…] who enjoyed the hospitality of the Costa Brava region in northeastern Spain, as part of the post TBEX conference activities. Since Costa Brava was selected by National Geographic as one of the Top Destinations […]
Here’s my post on getting to the Costa Brava: http://www.pointsandtravel.com/how-to-take-a-trip-to-the-costa-brava-spains-northeast-coast/
Here is my post on L’Estartit: http://www.pointsandtravel.com/so-you-want-to-go-to-spains-brave-coast-seaside-lestartit/
Here’s my post on Begur, Spain: http://www.pointsandtravel.com/medieval-villages-along-the-costa-brava-of-spain-begur/
http://motrlt.com/2012/09/20/dali-amazing-museum-adventure-a-day-20/
I too want to thank all of our hosts for taking such care of us and for creating some unforgettable experiences in Costa Brava. I’ve just posted a short blog entry about visiting the Dali museum.
Thank you!
About the military re-enactment:
http://motrlt.com/2012/09/21/girona-defeats-napoleon-adventure-a-day-22/
GIrona Defeats Napoleon
Here’s my write up: What I REALLY Learned at TBEX Europe: http://monkeysandmountains.com/what-i-really-learned-at-tbex-europe.
Great review, Laurel! Lots of helpful information for us – we love reviews like this, they help us improve. 🙂
Here’s my initial photo essay: http://followbenandjenna.com/a-week-in-costa-brava-initial-photos/
Happy surprise to find my most recent post on the list! Thanks. Definitely more coming soon 😉 Happy to read everyone’s experience. Hugs, Mariana/ @travelthirst
Here’s my take on my time at TBEX 2012 in Girona – http://travelblogger101.com/five-things-i-never-knew-until-tbex-europe-2012-in-costa-brava/.
Here’s a little something about Catalonia – not TBEX as such, more observances from roaming the streets of Girona and the region during the conference – http://www.sophiesworld.net/catalonia-new-european-state/ – and another one I wrote just before the conference, about Girona – http://www.sophiesworld.net/stairs-of-girona-catalonia-spai/
[…] of my trip before.And I was in the company of people I like and adore – I was there for a travel bloggers conference, after all.This may be the answer.May it be that what truly sours one’s experience in a place […]
Here’s my post on Girona and TBEX: an absolute beginners not native english speaker travel blogger point of view. I blog in Italian but this post has the english translation:
Girona. More than a six-letter word near Barcelona while booking a Ryanair flight.
http://www.labarbanoinviaggio.com/?p=274
TBEX was great. Thanks to everybody!
I wrote about Girona and the Castle Party so far, with many more posts to come about all of the great places we went post conference. http://spanishsabores.com/2012/10/25/why-attend-a-travel-blogging-conference-tbex-castle-party/ and http://spanishsabores.com/2012/10/19/getting-to-know-girona/
[…] lion’s bottom so I’ll return again to Girona.What Barbara wrote about staying in GironaYou’ll find a list of what other bloggers wrote about TBEX and Girona here Visitor Information for GironaWe booked our apartment in Girona through Wimdu.com who have Holiday […]
WOW! what a list! i will check to see if you have an updated one. thanks for the great info!
[…] last hotel night and activities for the 3-day “post-TBEX Europe 2012 Girona, Spain” Costa Brava Tourism sponsored tour for a van full of eight travel bloggers was at the spa hotel […]
[…] were over 350 people, including a good mix of attendees from Europe and North America. There was plenty of buzz about this event as […]