The Travel & Adventure Show is one of our favorite ways to beat the winter travel blues! We recently attended this energizing event in Chicago, and returned brimming with inspiration to share with fellow travel lovers.
The Travel & Adventure Show is a traveler’s dream – a convention where destinations from around the world vie for your attention with colorful booths and enticing promotions. Alongside tourism boards, you’ll find expert speakers dishing out invaluable travel advice and recounting spellbinding tales from the road less traveled.
One such speaker was Andrew McCarthy, a member of the BRAT pack who is also a travel writer. He has chronicled his journeys over the years for National Geographic and has written several travel books. McCarthy regaled the audience with a simple but profound lesson: Don’t be afraid to say yes to opportunity. One spontaneous decision in his youth to play a round of golf in Ireland set the course for a lifetime of adventure, eventually leading him to meet his wife.
Pauline Frommer gave a very moving talk about the lessons she learned from her late father, Arthur Frommer, who passed away at the end of 2024. Arthur was a pioneer in the travel guidebook industry when he was stationed in Germany during the Korean war and wrote a travel guide for GIs that has morphed into the Frommers empire of today. Probably one of my favorite quotes of his that Pauline shared is this: “At its best, travel should challenge our preconceptions and most cherished views, cause us to rethink our assumptions, shake us a bit, make us broader minded and more understanding.”
We also caught presentations by savvy travel experts like Russell Hannon, who optimizes every trip with ingenious cost-cutting strategies. One brilliant tip? The website imoova.com, allows you to relocate vehicles for a nominal fee while avoiding expensive rental drop-off charges. We have discovered listings to move RVs from the manufacturing hub of Elkhart, Indiana to destinations across North America for just $200 including gas! Sign us up for an epic road trip!
Other illuminating sessions covered topics like squeezing maximum value from travel rewards programs and overriding those annoying motion-sensor hotel thermostats (thanks, Scott Mayerowitz!). Several speakers mentioned this money-saving tip- you can join AARP for discounts at just 18 years old!
More than anything, the Travel & Adventure Show reminds us that the world brims with possibilities for enriching travel experiences. After soaking in so much expertise and enthusiasm, we leave reinvigorated to keep exploring, learning and growing through the incomparable lens of new cultures and landscapes.
If your soul is hungry for adventure, don’t miss the chance to attend a Travel & Adventure Show when it rolls into your city. Allow the wanderlust to consume you among kindred nomads who understand the profound value of taking the road less traveled.
Thanks for stopping by! Check out our Go See Do Explore Podcast, available wherever you listen to podcasts. To read about some of our previous trips, visit my Trips Page. If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page and follow me on Instagram! For my list of gadgets to make your travels easier, click here. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page.