I recently had a business trip and conference to attend…and it was not in the traditional big conference cites, but instead, it was in the Florida Keys. Let’s talk about the good, the bad and the ugly!

First and foremost, you need to fly into Miami and for those of us on the west coast, that is a full day trip. But as soon as you arrive and head to the hotels on Miami beach, you can see why it is a popular town.

There are tons of great rooms that practically right on the beach.

with a lot of great scenery for runs and walks along the canals or the beach boardwalks.

and who knows, you might even run into a dinosaur!

some of the rooms are huge, but I am not sure that is a great benefit when the bed and stairs are 30 feet above the main room…

I found that all the hotels and resorts in the keys all seem to have evening entertainment, that is for sure. Why is that?

Maybe in the Keys, you are long distance from almost everything unless it is another resort.

The greatest benefit – gorgeous sunsets

and bright moons over the sky for dinner

but when you share a resort with a lot of unknown people, you need to be diligent and have secuirty around every corner. Otherwise everyone will sneak into your crowded rooms or confidental meetings,

but that was not a big problem for us as most of the guests like hanging out with the dolphins more than trying to sneak into our meetings…

These isolated conferences are much better at being able to focus and have dedicated time than being in a big city with hotels and lots of distractions.

How does it compare to a massive conference like RSA in San Francisco (blog)?

or the Multiversity in California (blog)? I think I would still prefer the more isolated camps that you have more space and not crowded with all the vactioners in the resort.

Oh yes, on a different trip, I did explore the Florida Keys (blog), so there is a lot of fun if you can leave the resort and conference, but I was not able to this time,

I did go running (of course!) With some of the other running enthusiasts at the conference!