It's Like Taking a Mini-Vacation Around the World

The Chicago TAS is one of the best ways to learn about destinations for a future vacation. It's better than a search engine for exploring, because you'll run across destinations and tours you might never think of Googling.  And many exhibitors offer deals that are only available on-site.

But the show is more than just exhibitors promoting their destinations. 

It's culture - dance and musical troupes from many nations appearing on the World Beats Stage. 

It's food - learn how to make authentic spicy dishes from around the globe at the Fiery Foods kitchen. 

It's learning how to travel better from globetrotting experts like Travel Channel's Samantha Brown and Patricia Schultz, author of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die.

You can zip line, scuba, rock climb... even ride a camel.

Can you think of a better way to spend a cold, wintery weekend in January than planning a vacation? 

Registration is open and you'll save a couple of bucks by registering online in advance.

Starting At The Top

When we're figuring out what content to feature here, we expect about half the published content will promote the destinations that are exhibiting at the show. Kind of like what we do for the LA show. By the time the show comes around we hope we've touched on every destination being represented by exhibitors.

We just printed out the exhibitor list for the Chicago show. And the first company on the list, because we alphabetize numbers before letters, is 5 Hour Energy.

That's not a destination. Or maybe it is, depending on your point of view.

Some of us are hardcore coffee people, like Rich, who used to own a coffeehouse. A single origin medium-light roast is the only way he'll ingest caffeine.

Others of us are like Spooner. Spooner has CASES of 5 Hour Energy in the kitchen. And if he's your sales rep, that factoid shouldn't be too surprising. Spooner has very high energy. More than 5 hours' worth.

At the moment, it appears 5 Hour Energy is only available in the US and Canada. We assume that as the bottle is less than 3 ounces you can put it in your hand baggage if you're headed outside North America.

And we've seen at least one reference to it's usefulness in combating jet lag.

So there you go. First post!