My BlogHer ‘14 Recap (Part 1)

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the 10th Annual BlogHer Conference in San Jose, CA from July 24-26, 2014.   I've been trying to write this post for the past week, but I’ve had a little trouble trying to narrow down what I wanted to cover.  But I finally figured it out.  In this post I’m going to cover a general overview of the first day traveling to the conference.  Stay tuned later this week for additional posts, which will include a recap of the first and second day of the conference, what I wore and a few things that I learned during along the way.

As I mentioned in a previous post, this was my first time that I attended any type of blogger conference.  Although I was excited to attend, I still felt a little anxious even on my flight there.  One of my main concerns was that I didn’t know anyone attending the conference.  I worried that I wouldn’t meet anyone and more importantly I felt a little insecure about my writing and even my overall blog presence. And as silly as it sounds, I also worried that I wouldn’t have anyone to sit with during the group breakfasts and lunches.  But my concerns were put to rest the very first day.  Everyone at the conference was so helpful, supportive and very friendly.  Although I attended the conference alone, I met some amazing women over the course of two days.  You ladies know who you are.  Everyone that I met this weekend encouraged me to continue to do what I love and be the best version of myself.  I learned so much at the conference and left feeling inspired and more motivated than when I first arrived.

 

Thursday, July 24^th

On Thursday, July 24th, I landed in San Francisco, CA a little after 12:00pm.  I rented a car and drove to San Jose, CA.  The conference was held at the San Jose Convention Center in downtown San Jose.  The convention center was only about 45 minutes away from San Francisco, so the drive wasn’t too bad.  Luckily, I was able to check into the Marriott San Jose hotel as soon as I arrived. Which was perfect timing because I was pretty tired from my coast-to-coast travel and I really needed to sleep.

Although I arrived in San Jose on Thursday, I didn’t attend any of the Pathfinder sessions.  The Pathfinder sessions was a pre-conference day of individual goal-setting, intensive workshops and one-on-one mentorship.  I would have loved to attend one of these but there was an extra fee that I couldn’t justify spending after paying for the conference and airfare.

When I woke up from my nap, I headed over to the convention center to pick up my registration packet.  Then I made a quick stop at the Kick Off the Selfibration Evening at the Expo.  This was a small reception that launched BlogHer’s Tenth Anniversary Selfibration.  The reception was a little overwhelming for a newbie like me.  There were a lot of sponsors there and more and more bloggers trickled in throughout the night.  I decided to walk through the entire exhibit floor to get a lay of the land and then went back to my hotel room.  Before I left, I checked out most of the sponsors, I participated in a couple of giveaways and ate a little food.

Lucky for you all, there wasn’t too much to write here for my travel day, but be sure to check out my blog later this week for another BlogHer recap.