At IMM Meeting, Picking Up News from Around the World

I met with about 30 people today, all from different parts of the world, sharing their reasons why we should write travel articles about them.  Every destination has its bullet points, and I was there to glean how they could be transformed into stories.  Here are some of them.

I learned about Celebration, Florida, in Kissimmee, makes it own snow, and blows it down the leafy neighborhood.  It makes a good photo, but is hard to clean up.

In Denver, the ski train takes you from Union Station downtown, two hours  up into the mountains to a city-owned ski area and the train drops you off right next to the lodge.  In this very dry climate, even a big snowstorm melts very quickly, and the sunshine gets rid of the rest of the snow.

At the Trump Hotel in Washington DC, room rates average $700 per night, and there is no drink at the bar that costs less than $25.  I had a moment while I was speaking to two woman from Yosemite, California, when I made the mistake of thinking they agreed with me about our new president. They gently reminded me that they didn’t, and that was the end of our politics talk.

There is new play that is coming out on Broadway called “Come From Away,” it’s set in Newfoundland and is about how the people there took care of thousands of stranded airline passengers after all the planes were diverted during 9/11. This should be a big boost to Newfoundland, and sounds like a great topic for a play.

In Panama, there are now two canals side by side, and cruise lines like Princess Cruises are running ships through both, and it has speeded up the whole process of transiting from the Atlantic to the Pacific.