The 2019 New York Times Travel Show just passed. The show, a three day event, was in session from January 25-27.

Like every year, the first day was a trade- day. I’ve always wanted to attend the day time sessions but I’m not sure that it would be worth taking a day off from work for it.

This year, I decided to attend the show with Lucas for a few hours on the first regular day.

Kim isn’t a huge fan of the show and we also figured that Theo would wreak havoc on some of the booths, so going with Lucas was the perfect plan.

We showed up at the New York Times Travel Show with no real plan. Actually, our only real plan was to have a good time and that was something that we easily accomplished during our time.I usually like to attend some of the travel seminars so after dropping off our coats, I saw what was being offered.

We walked in on a packed seminar being given by travel TV star Samantha Brown.Lucas and I stood in the back for a few minutes listening to the talk. Samantha Brown’s Places To Love will be starting its second season. Her show is on public television now and she says that everything she does is accessible to anyone.

Destinations she’ll be visiting are varied between domestic and international. She also mentioned how she was a big fan of “B cities”. Think Baltimore, Maryland and Lafayette, Louisiana (opposed to New Orleans).

Samantha Brown has always came across as down to earth and her series sounds like one worth checking out.
I found it funny that Citi had a booth pushing the AAdvantage credit card. I’m not sure that I recall ever seeing a booth there for this purpose. I guess it’s cheaper than paying those affiliate referrals!This year, there were lots of travel product booths at the show.

We spent a good amount of time chatting with the team from Bluffworks, a travel clothing company.

I was very impressed with their line which features business and casual items. Their travel vest looked pretty impressive as did their lightweight travel jeans! I was also shown a couple of not yet available items. (Think super soft t-shirts and a really good looking coat.)

A few Asian countries had the most enjoyable booths to visit.Lucas really loved getting his name written in Chinese on a bookmark from Taiwan.Korea had some fun characters in front of their large booth to take photos with.We also had a blast dressing up as Korean royalty. Talk about a fun, interactive booth!Much like Taiwan, one area of the massive Japan booth was also writing names in Japanese.Lucas got another really nice bookmark (or something like that) with his name written out in a foreign language.
ANA and Japan Rail had a small table which Lucas really loved due to its toy train set. I had to remind Lucas that he rode those trains when he was less than a year and a half old!We randomly stopped by the Palm Springs table in search of a bag for the small amount of swag we collected. This led to the best giveaways of the day.

The Palm Springs tourism board reps were super nice. They gave Lucas a pen shaped like a palm tree (and one for Theo when they heard he had a little brother) and a tape measure. Fun!

Other booths of interest:

I chatted with reps from a couple of companies which do tours to Churchill in Manitoba, Canada for polar bear tours. I’ve been interested in doing a tour of this sort for years. The issue is that they’re pricey plus I am never off from work during the best season to visit! Hopefully I’ll get to see polar bears up close someday.

I also spent a bit of time learning about a deal site called TravelPirates. They find airfare, hotel and other kinds of travel deals. I figured that they were worth looking into a bit closer so I subscribed to their e-mails when I got home.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, the New York Times Travel Show was a fun event.

While I didn’t go seeking out much travel info, there are many tourism boards and tour companies present. Lucas and I had a really great time and we plan to go again next year.