Preparing for the Travel Bloggers Summit in Berlin: Nothing Zen Part 5

The Event

I am looking forward to the opportunity: On March 5 and 6, 2008 I will be meeting a couple of fellow Travel Bloggers (T-Listers) at a Travel bloggers Summit at ITB Berlin (International Travel Boerse (or Fair), Berlin.

More about the Summit itself later. For now a link to the Blog that has been launched to keep the community informed: ITB 2008 Tips From The T-List

Nothing Zen
In December 2006 I started my Zen series as a sort of status report about how the Internet is developing to help you with planning and booking a trip. Nothing better than to report about your own travel preparations to see how advanced or not the Internet is with respect to DIY Travel.

My 5 Areas of Interest
As I said earlier traveling is about 4 distinctive areas of interest, but actually there are 5 (I now have added as nr 2: “Where to stay in B?”, because that is also the main focus of this blog). Here is the list:

1. How to travel from A to B? Like: by plane, train, car or by boat? (I hate buses).
2. Where to stay in B?
3. How is B looking? Maps, pictures and descriptions (what you usually look for in a paper guide)
4. How are the people of B?
5. Things to do in B? Bars, restaurants, theaters, musea, scenic parts

1) How to travel from The Hague to Berlin?
Well this one is simple this time. First, as a hotelier, it is always difficult to plan well ahead of time as there are always last minute guests and/or last minute changes of guests. I have a decent car. The trip to Berlin is 703 km according to my Tom Tom. Main part of the trip is over German motorways without speed limits, so I can burn the rubber a bit. I also like to tour around a bit by car at destinations, because it gives me a better feel of the geography. I have a laptop and some camera gear to take with me which would be a lot of weight for an airplane and last, but not least I like to smoke which is not allowed anymore in planes and trains. Finally, with the very low level of service at airports (I always feel like being in a lorry of pigs heading to the slaughterhouse) and in airplanes and all the delays, there is not so much time to gain when you travel up to 700/800 km. So I decided to go by car.

More to follow, because I hit the “Publish Button” far too early this time:-)

And p.s.: Happy Leap Day!