WITS 2024 Salt Lake City: Women in Travel Summit, Part 1

On Wednesday, April 10 I flew from Texas to Salt Lake City while Steve and Trevor continued home. Why did I go to SLC alone? WITS. 

WITS stands for Women in Travel Summit. This annual conference brings travel bloggers, authors, and content creators together for educational sessions, networking, and an in-depth look at the host destination. About 99.5% of the attendees are women, but all genders are welcome. The 2024 conference was held in Salt Lake City, with a day trip to Park City. This was my first in-person travel conference since I started doing travel blogging in 2017. (I attended a virtual travel conference in 2022.) By fun coincidence, I was in Salt Lake City for SNAP Conference when decided to expand beyond crafts and blog about travel as well.

WITS consists of a 3-day core conference, with many tours available before and after. Some are by invitation only, while others are available to any attendees. Since they’re included in the price of registration, I signed up for as many tours as I could fit into my schedule. 

Anyway, I landed in Salt Lake City in the early evening. It was fun seeing this sign greeting me at the airport. 

For $2.50, I rode the Trax Green Line from the airport to the Temple Square Station. I love how easy and convenient it is. 

The Temple is under construction (more on that later) but it doesn't affect transit.

The Salt Lake Marriott Downtown at City Creek (the host hotel) is just one block away from the Temple Square Station. I checked into my room, unpacked, and went to bed early, excited for my first tour the following morning. 

Early on Thursday, April 11, I headed to the lobby for my first tour. I didn’t know a soul going into WITS, but everyone was very friendly and I almost didn’t want to stop chatting with my new friends when it was time to load onto our respective buses. There were seven of us on our 3-hour tour. 

Southwest Adventure Tours offers private tours throughout the southwest and beyond. Our guide, Cameron, told us all sorts of interesting information about Salt Lake City as he drove us around town. We made made multiple stops, starting with this influencer-friendly sign. It's randomly tucked away in a parking garage.

Next we went to the Clark Planetarium. I went there in 2016 with Steve and Trevor and it was lots of fun to visit again. I don’t remember them having a huge display of telescopes for sale in the lobby last time. 

A moon rock! (But already on The List).

This is so much fun to watch. 

I love the tables by the snack bar outside the IMAX theater. Our group didn’t watch a show, but we did during our 2016 family visit. I definitely recommend a visit to Clark Planetarium during your visit to Salt Lake City. 

Salt Lake City has a lot of public art, including many fabulous murals. This one, SLC Pepper, was done by Jann Haworth. She's a Utah resident who created the original Sgt. Pepper album cover for the Beatles!

Next, we went to the Capitol. 

Until very recently, they were flying the previous state flag. This one is a huge improvement. 

I've visited almost all of the State Capitol buildings and Utah's is one of my favorites. It's grand and beautiful and full of interesting details, inside and out. 

If you're up for a challenge, try to count the beehives at the Capitol. Allow most of the day - they are everywhere! 

Hey! That's the old flag. I can see the beehive, but it's so much easier to spot on the new flag.

Don't forget to look for the Liberty Bell replica.

The views from the Capitol are so pretty. And we were blessed with perfect weather. 

I didn't know that High School Musical was filmed in Salt Lake City. East High is an active high school and students were in session when we passed by. You can take a self-guided tour after school gets out in the afternoon. 

Our final stop on the morning's tour was supposed to be an organ recital at the Tabernacle. These 30-minute concerts have happened (almost) daily for a century. However, there had been an Ensign College graduation at the Tabernacle that day instead of a concert, so we got to see the organ but not hear it. 

I was surprised that the Tabernacle was still open and hosting recitals (and, for that matter, graduations). Much of Temple Square is blocked by construction fencing. 

You can read here about the renovation; it's very interesting. It started in December 2019 and is expected to be completely finished in 2026. 

Since I'm not a member of the LDS Church, I can't go in the Temple anyway, so it's not a huge deal to me that it was under construction when I was there. However, I was very disappointed not to be able to eat at Lion House Pantry, which is also closed for renovations. I'd been thinking about their pot pie and biscuits since I booked the ticket to SLC!

Instead, I ate somewhere I hadn't been before, Kneaders. This Utah chain serves up all sorts of sandwiches, soups, salads, and bakery items. I had a fantastic lunch and took advantage of the many samples they had on offer. 

Kneaders is located in City Creek Center. It's basically an outdoor mall, but there's a lot more to it. Most notably, it's beautiful. 

  

In addition to the namesake creek, there are beautiful fountains (with hourly shows). Kids are welcome to play in the children's 'Engage' fountain and there are opportunities to feed the fish! Along the creek, there are pawprints of different native animals. City Creek Center is quite a place and well-worth a visit. 

Another good reason to visit City Creek Center is that it houses the Utah Sports Hall of Fame. 

  

The HOF is small, but very well done. And it's free to visit!

This display lets you choose an athlete and see how you measure up to them.... literally!

The angles are a little weird (I'm 5'2"), but it's funny how I'm dwarfed by this basketball player, while the gymnast and I are about the same size (and have similar bangs!). 

I enjoyed my visit, but it was time to return to the Marriott for my next tour. I could give you a hundred tries and you probably won't guess what I did on that tour. Here's your hint: it's a sport, and it's something that literally not a single person I know has ever done. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow!

Family Fun in Central Texas, Part 6: San Antonio

This is my sixth post about our family's travels to Central Texas. I recommend reading the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth posts before this one. Because I blog about educational travel, I was given free admission tickets, media rates, discounts, and other benefits for some of the attractions we visited throughout the trip. This has no bearing on my reviews. Everything I'm sharing is something that I recommend whole-heartedly. If you notice any gaps in my narrative, it's because I didn't like a particular hotel, attraction, or restaurant enough to recommend it, regardless of how much I paid or didn't pay.

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San Antonio, Texas

After a wonderful morning at the San Antonio Zoo, plus taking 11/14ths of the Old Town Trolley Tour, we were more than ready for lunch. We chose the highly recommended Crockett Tavern in the historic Crockett Hotel. 

It was a fantastic decision. The atmosphere was great and the food was terrific. 

Then we visited the city's most famous attraction, The Alamo. From this angle, you can see the Crockett Hotel peeking over the Alamo church. 

In case you don't 'Remember the Alamo', here's a refresher. The Alamo was built in the early 1700's by the Spanish government as Misión San Antonio de Valero in order to spread Roman Catholicism to the indigenous population. It was secularized in 1793 and abandoned. Eventually, it served as a fortress, first by Mexicans and then by Texians. At the Battle of the Alamo (a 13-day siege in 1836), the Mexican Army reclaimed the Alamo and killed most of its defenders, including Davy Crockett and James Bowie. 

There are a lot of things to see and do at the Alamo. The most recognizable is the Alamo Church. Entry is free, but you need tickets. 

It was ridiculously crowded when we visited. I asked if that was due to the eclipse, but was told that it's almost always crowded. The line to get in was 30+ minutes, so be prepared to stand in the sun for awhile. 

Don't miss the sacristy, where the women and children hid during the siege. 

There's a lot more at the Alamo to see than just the church. 

The Long Barrack is the oldest building on the site and is where you'll find the 17-minute Crossroads of History film. At the Calvary Courtyard and Alamo Cenotaph, you can remember those who died during the siege. 

  

Don't miss the Living History Encampment or the Wall of History to learn even more. Unfortunately, they were so crowded that we didn't end up with any pictures that showed more than just a wall of people. 

Things were a little less crowded at the Alamo Exhibit inside the Collections Center, since there's an admission fee to go in. Start with this excellent model of the Battle of the Alamo for a very informative overview. 

Phil Collins features prominently throughout the building. You may wonder, as I did, what connection a British drummer, singer, and songwriter has to the Alamo. It turns out Collins learned the story of the Alamo when he was five years old and saw the Disney film Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (affiliate link). He's been a passionate collector of Alamo artifacts for many years.  

You could easily spend the entire day at the Alamo. I don't do well in crowds, so we didn't stay as long as I'd expected we would. But I'm glad we saw what we did. The Alamo is a very interesting place with tons of history and a lot to see and do. 

Next up, the San Antonio Urban Adventure Quest. As you know, I'm obsessed. I think there's no better way to get an up close and personal look at a city. Conveniently, the first five questions are all around the Alamo. On the sixth question, we ran into construction that made it impossible to find the answer. 

There's a covered mural on the right that has the information we needed!

Fortunately, that's not a problem with Quests. They have options to get hints, skip questions, or even call Customer Service. They are great about helping their users. And as soon as they're aware of a problem (like this one), they'll put a notation in the Quest to let users know something is temporarily impossible due to construction. 

Another feature I love with Urban Adventure Quests is the ability to pause the game. We needed to catch the last Old Town Trolley tour of the day in order to see Stops #1-3 and to retrieve our car, still parked (for free!) at the zoo. 

As before, our driver was great and we learned so much more about San Antonio. We got off the trolley and walked to our car, intending to drive back downtown, find parking, and resume the Quest. 

But... we didn't. It was so crowded downtown and we'd need to find parking. We were way too hot (heat + humidity = torture) and we weren't dressed cooly enough. I was in jeans. Trevor was in jeans and a long sleeved shirt. He'd turned down my offer to buy him a short-sleeved shirt, but accepted an Icee. Steve, apparently the smartest of the three of us, was dressed like everyone else in San Antonio that day, wearing a t-shirt and shorts. Anyway, once we got in our car with the AC blasting, none of us wanted to return to the heat and the crowds, even to finish our Quest. I don't know if the game remains paused forever, but it's still paused as I'm writing this two weeks later. I hope someday we'll be back in San Antonio, not only to finish the Quest but to see everything else that we missed. It really is a great city.  

Other than some construction traffic, we had a pleasant drive back to Fredericksburg. I snapped a quick photo of our temporary home-sweet-home, then headed indoors to put my stuff down. 

Within five minutes, the sky was black and we had a massive thunderstorm that lasted for hours. It turned out to be such a blessing that we'd headed back when we did, rather than driving home in that weather. 

The next morning, we said goodbye to Dave, Pat, and Teri, checked out of Hugelhaus, and headed to the Austin airport. We allowed plenty of time, not knowing how the drive would be. As it turned out, the drive was fine, but the airport was insane. Long story short, we it took a lot more time than it should have to get to our gate and none of the problem was due to security. We had an uneventful flight to Salt Lake City. I said goodbye to Steve and Trevor and got off the plane, while they continued on to Sacramento. 

What was I doing alone in Salt Lake City? I'll tell you all about that tomorrow.