I really don’t travel anymore

The American Library Association annual conference is going on now, in Anaheim. The cost of airfare to California and my current financial situation mean that I’m not able to go, and unless I have something specific to attend for and a track, I’m not sure I can handle the onslaught of things to do at an Annual. Let alone the temptation of being near Los Angeles, although I didn’t go near LA last time I was in Anaheim, either.

I went in 2005 (Chicago; keynote speaker: Barack Obama) and went to a bunch of programs, but mostly I wandered around the exhibits gathering advance reader copies of books and checked out the non-conference things to do in Chicago. I had never been there before, and I ended up loving the city even though I was there in such a terrible heat wave that they were afraid the heat would affect train tracks. That’s very hot.

Like most of my solo trips, this was not exactly a well-planned excursion. This usually works out in my favor. I tagged along on some things that my library school friend Katie had planned, leafed through a Lonely Planet book and picked out restaurants and museums that interested me, mixed in conference events, and overall had a pretty good, if lonely, time when I was able to ascertain where I was. I even managed to turn an innocent trip to Panera for Internet access into getting trapped at said Panera by the Pride Parade, which I hadn’t originally planned to attend, and indeed hadn’t known was going on. Good times.

I am sort of a history nerd though, and almost despite myself I like going on tours of the city I’m in and learning things I might not have normally known. I wish I had budgeted for tours when I was in Chicago…ah, well, good to know for next time, or next time I’m looking for things to do in New York City when I’m there on a daytrip.

Anyway, this travel memory is sponsored by online travel guides from Trusted Tours. If you don’t want to spend as much time lost as I do, you can subscribe to their travel newsletter and enter the drawing for a GPS. I totally need one of those.