Conference! Those glamorous days when we can wear a nice suit and demonstrate what are we made of in front of dozens of researchers. It can go pretty well and be a good chance to meet new people or make new friends! However, the preparation is essential to achieve your most ambitious plans. Why am I saying this? Well, let’s say that you don’t want to end up stranded in Tijuana on your next travel to a conference. Believe me, you don’t. My first huge conference was on a beautiful beach in the Pacific Ocean, but because of my poor organization, the things went pretty bad the whole trip.

Photo by Luis Villegas Armenta

What did I learn? Let me give you a hand:

1. Always arrive one night before your presentation if you are planning to arrive by plane. You never know when the weather will look for some fun.
2. Investigate more than one way to reach the conference hotel. Sometimes the roads can be blocked by a construction or maybe the sea just decided to swallow them (as in my case).
3. Make sure you have a way to pay for everything you could need (extra cash, debit). It would be a shame if your credit card gets blocked out of nowhere (again, my case).
4. Find a way to contact the conference staff in case of any complication.
5. Upload your presentation to a cloud storage. USB´s gets lost just too often.
6. Bring extra clothes. Always.
7. Finally, have some fun! Even if something bad happens. At the end, you will always remember the beautiful sunset you saw while eating cold pizza on the beach.

Good luck with those abstracts!

Banner image by GradLife McGill Blogger Luis Villegas