Make the most of conference travel

What will you do besides attending the next conference? How about a day trip to the beautiful Niagara falls before or after the Toronto ICDE conference?

Good planning is the key to awesome conference travels. It is essential to note the key conferences that you want to attend as soon as their dates and venues are available. Then you need to work on the abstract and paper, submit with the first call for papers and start to work around the conference towards those things that will make a good trip awesome, wonderful and memorable. These activities include an eye on world events like sport calendars - some of which you can include in your itinerary if you are a fan, or would like to avoid by looking for alternative flight routes to save money on ticket and avoids crowds at airport security. Keep in mind that some conference venues are selected to coincide with large events such as the Olympic games and that attending such conferences could potentially cost much more due to the higher demands in travel and accommodation needs.  

Also, if you have the time to do so, consider including a stopover or two. This adds the feel of vacation to the conference trip and grands you the opportunity to visit places on your bucket list or simply a chance to coupe with jet-lag, before stepping right back into work when arriving home. We have loyalty membership to a few airlines and normally use their home airports for stopovers. More often than not, we are also able to plan our stopovers over weekends (when flights are more expensive and more crowed) and fly home late on a Monday night or early Tuesday morning. Stopovers also provide opportunities to visit foreign libraries and archives to do some research or including a business meeting with colleagues at a distant university, or simply a chance to visit friends or family. Remember that stopovers usually (for South Africans at least) also include extra visas. 

The ICDE conference is coming up this month - hope to see you all in Toronto!