Flight is booked, hotel is scheduled and conference is registered; it’s safe to say we’re heading to NYC!

My boss puts a priority on our team attending professional development activities throughout the year, including one bigger trip if the topic makes sense. She encouraged me to look into the 3rd Annual PR and Media Relations Best Practices Summit by Ragan Communications given my focus on media relations for the university. The presenter line-up looks great and right on target with my day-to-day work. I think there’s a lot I can learn and apply to the efforts we already have underway. I’m especially looking forward to the presentations on crisis communications and metrics– two areas I’m interested in and have tons of the room for improvement.

The beauty of this conference is that it’s a day and a half– just enough time to get through some excellent content but not so long that I’ll have trouble concentrating due to an overwhelming amount of information.

The other perk is that I’m tacking on a couple days following the conference to see the city, and the fiance is tagging along. I do not take for granted that our jobs give us some flexibility and that on occasion we’re able to work remotely. It’s a huge perk and makes these sorts of trips possible.

Although he’ll be working from the hotel while I’m at the conference, we’re looking forward to some great food the first couple evenings and then some site-seeing after the conference ends Friday afternoon.

We’ve both been to NYC before, but he buzzed through on his way elsewhere and it’s been more than 10 years since I’ve been there so we both have lots of catching up to do.

On Friday, we’re going to try to see Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty followed by the World Trade Center memorial, Wall Street and the Brooklyn Bridge. We’ll probably just grab some NYC pizza to round it out.

On Saturday, we’re hoping to head up to Grand Central Terminal for lunch at the Oyster Bar, and then spend the afternoon exploring the Top of the Rock, Central Park, Times Square and the theater district. We’re going to catch dinner and a Broadway Show that night.

We just have the morning on Sunday, so we might fit in the Empire State building or just exploring the area around Times Square and our hotel.

I haven’t done much planning so I’m open to suggestions– any places we should be sure to see/anywhere we should be sure to eat?