I can’t give you perfect general advice because my experience is very different from yours.  I tend to be packing for two to four people, have business concerns to deal with at any given time, and may have more of a need to feel pretty than you do as your packing up for the adventure ahead.  That said, pick and choose, and for godsake, don’t forget your business cards.

Business cards. Did I mention those yet? Have some. Have extra. Even if you aren’t going to conventions as a professional, it might be the very best way to stay in touch with new friends you’ve made at the convention. If they’re not professional cards, make sure you have all your social networking listed on them. (Twitter, facebook, whathave you.) That way I can look up who you are when I’m looking through my stacks of cards after a few weeks of convention recovery.

Get a water proof folder, or binder with page protectors in it. I print out this stuff:

• Maps of all the locations I’ll be walking/driving. Yes, GPS and Smartphones are nice. Yes, they can break, not function, think the town you’re in doesn’t exist. Don’t let technology get the best of you.
• Print outs of all your confermations. Hotels, buses, planes, con tickets and any other thing you can preregister for. Also, preregister for everything you can possibly preregister for. Seriously, save yourself the hassle.
• A list of phone numbers and addresses. Emergency contacts, the people you want to hook up with at the Con, the local guy you’ve gotten in touch with ahead of time to ask questions of should you need to. (You do have that guy, right?) The hotels and centers you’re going to visit. It also never hurts to scope out a restaurant or two ahead of time. If you’re in a place you’ve never been too, knowing what the locals love might give you the chance to try something awesome as only the locals can do it, but that’s going to take some research. (Case in point, have you ever heard of a Lobster roll? me either. If I can find one while I’m in Boston, I am noming the hell out of that!)
• Blank character sheets for your game of choice. You never know when the moment will strike and be lost to have a great pick up game because no one has sheets.

Other important stuff.

Fresh clean socks. This is mostly a thing for my husband, but it can make all the difference. For him, we buy a new bag each time.

Clothes, sure, but extra clothes for weather hiccups. Layers are always the way to go in unfamiliar locations. Strip or stack on as needed.  (With the little ones, I try to pack 1 and a half outfits per day. That is, for two days, three outfits, and so on. Kids are very good at ruining clothes in inverse proportion to the rarity of clothing you brought.)

I like bags inside of bags. I section off bags for my makeup, for toiletries, for road-medicine. (You bring soap? Good. You bring aspirin and Tums to handle headaches, backaches, and stomach upset from crappy con eating? You are a master.) Also, stop buying little travel sized shampoo. Seriously. Get some empty bottles and fill ‘em up. You don’t need to spend a dollar on a nickel’s worth of soap. )

Also, don’t forget a little febreeze. I have kids and cats, and sometimes you don’t notice something has a … special added scent… to it until you’re outside of your home environment. Carrying a little fabric refresher can help and help you feel more confident and relaxed on your trip which is a big part of having a good time.

So there’s most of my Con pre guide. (Maybe I’ll examine traveling with kids more closely another time.) Now, I should probably stop typing and get back to packing for PAX East! Wooo! Wish me luck stalking Wil Wheaton!

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• I did Phauxcon the week before last and it was a certified blast. The smallest and coziest convention I’ve been to yet, I loved the chance for a real personal experience with the other attendees. I want to thank our hosts Robert and Sierra, they were awesome, I’d do it again next year without hesitation, and I think David and I created some new gamers in the crowd. That always makes a nerd-mama proud. While there, I got to hear from writer L.A. Banks, her story is beyond inspiring and developed a pretty immediate admiration for her. David talks about her talk here. The stuff of inspiration.

• My first fully independent role playing game is now up for you to buy at RPGNow. Torn Apart by Radiation Wraiths is a teaser, demo style game written for Maschine Zeit, a full Horror/Science fiction setting David and I are working on and hope to have out next year. Torn Apart by Radiation Wraiths is a full contained game complete with five developed characters full of secrets and motives. Torn Apart is also my first experiment in my Dominadora project. It’s less than $2 bucks over at RPGNow, so head over there and pick up your copy. (Note to new customers. Torn Apart had some strong language in it, so you have to login to view it. Login is free and required to buy anyhow, so it saves you a step later!)
• Next weekend I’ll be at GameXpo just a hop skip and jump from Philly. I’m going to be there pretty much all weekend manning tables, running games, getting people excited and hopefully selling more than a few copies of Torn Apart. In addition to all that, on Sunday David will be doing is WILDLY successful “RPG Design in an Hour” Panel and I’ll be joined with him, this dude, and this other sketchy character to talk about pen and paper RPGs and how awesome our writing is. (Erm, you know, not too much self promotion, I’m sure.) Come on down and hang out or we might have to bring the whole con to you, and trust me, you don’t want that sort of shenanigans going on at your place.
• I’m getting some real movement and support over at A Letter to the Game Industry. If you don’t know what that is yet, in short, it’s an open conversation going on about being a woman gamer and all the highs and lows that entails. Professionals to casual players are welcome to join the conversation, and I hope you will too.

Beyond that, I have about a dozen new projects sitting on various burners and various plates. I cannot wait until I can tell you more about them when I can. Really very exciting stuff.

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Why? Well, because you can get you geek on, talk about vampires AND see my husband, (David Hill’s,) hit panel “Design an RPG in an Hour.” Come see that, grab some lunch, and after lunch come back to see us talking about Vampires at your gaming table. Here are the blurbs.

Design an RPG in an Hour

We’re making a pen and paper RPG, and you’re invited to the design meeting. During the panel, you’ll address the problem-solving and analytical questions required to design a successful game. During the discussion, we’ll discuss the basics of game theory and how to outline, centered around an example you’re participating in. Soon after, the fruits of your labor will be published online as a downloadable ebook.

and

Filamena Young, a fiction and game writer, and David Hill, an Ennie Award winning game writer, want you to bring more fang to into your roleplaying. Both Filamena and David have worked on numerous products from White Wolf Publishing, (publishers of Vampire: the Requiem,) but also write for many types of pen and paper games. With a strong understanding of the vampire myth from early Slavic plagues of the undead to the modern Paranormal Romantic dreamboats, there isn’t a vampire that can’t find a comfortable way into your game, no matter what you play.

They’ll be lots of other stuff going on, but I wanted to make sure you all knew to check it out. Have a great weekend and if I don’t see you at the Con, tell Obama I said hi!

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