The Inaugural WordPress Community Summit will take place in Tybee Island, GA, USA on October 29, 2012.
Travel Dates
If you want to come just for the community summit, book your travel to arrive Sunday October 28th and depart Tuesday the 30th.
If you want to stay longer, it would be better to extend it after the summit rather than before, for two reasons.
- By the end of the summit, everyone’s brains will (hopefully) be overflowing with new ideas for projects and ways to improve WordPress, so extending the trip after the summit will maximize the amount of time people can collaborate on the new ideas and projects.
- If you come early, the team reps will be super bummed if they can’t hang out with you because they are required to work at their team reps meeting. 🙂
Much of the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. team will be sticking around until Thursday.
Transportation
By Air
The closest airport is Savannah, GA (SAV). Tybee Island is 35 miles from the airport (~45 minutes, lovely drive through moss-covered live oaks and protected marshland).
Car rentals are available at the airport, and may be useful if you are traveling with other people or intend to go sightseeing. Otherwise, taxis are available at the terminal. We can also try to arrange shuttles in advance for when there are multiple people arriving near the same time. Once you’ve made your flight reservations, send your info to Jane and she will follow up about shuttles closer to the event.
If you want to fly to a nearby airport instead to use a specific airline, the most likely ones are:
- Jacksonville, FL (JAX) — 147 miles, 2.5 hours, nearest JetBlue airport.
- Charleston, SC (CHS) — 127 miles, 2.5 hours, nearest Southwest airport.
- Atlanta, GA (ATL) — 262 miles, 4.5 hours (or more, depending on traffic), nearest major international hub. Note: ATL is officially the busiest airport in the world, and its security lines take 2-3 times as long as anywhere else. If you are able to fly to Savannah instead, the connection will still most likely be better than having to allow 3 hours to enter security in ATL (in the US, you only go through security screening at the airport of entry, not at subsequent transfer airports) + drive/bus time.
From each of these, you can rent a car or hop a bus to get to Savannah.
By Train
The nearest train (Amtrak) is also in Savannah. There are no car rentals at the train station, but taxis are available. We can also arrange shuttle pickups.
By Bus
If you’re coming from the Southeast US, you can also take a Greyhound bus to Savannah. Same as train re cars/taxis/shuttles.
Lodging
As a vacation spot, Tybee hosts a variety of lodging options. The most cost-effective, socially pleasing, and homey option is to rent a vacation cottage to share with other attendees (this is what we do for the core team meetups we’ve had here). You can team up with existing friends, or you can make new ones by having us match you up with other attendees based on the dates you’re planning to be in town. There’s a forum set up so you can talk about it with the rest of the folks. If you want us to help you find roommates/a place, drop Jane a line.
We have arranged for a 20% discount with three WordPress-loving cottage rental companies, Mermaid Cottages, Tybee Joy Vacation Rentals, and Oceanfront Cottage Rentals. If you book something with them, mention the “WordPress Community Summit discount” in the reservation form. They’ll have a list of the people attending to verify that you should get the discount.
If beach cottages aren’t your style, there are also a couple of hotels, motels, condo rental buildings, bed & breakfasts, and even a campground/RV park. If you would prefer one of these options, check them out on TripAdvisor. Before you book a place, feel free to ask Jane about its reputation, since she’s local.
Parking
If you drive to Tybee, or rent a car at the airport, there will be plenty of parking for you at the conference venue. Most rental cottages also have parking for several cars.
Food
We will provide lunch the day of the conference, as well as coffee and muffins that morning. If you have any dietary restrictions (allergies, vegan, gluten-free, diabetic, etc), please be sure to let Jane know so that we can make sure we can feed you!
While other meals will be on your own/with other attendees, if there’s interest in organizing a big group trip to the Crab Shack or other local eatery, that could probably be arranged. 🙂