There are places I dream about all year.

Paris.

London.

New York.

Lake Como.

Palm Beach.

Las Vegas has never been one of them.

If you know me at all, this probably isn’t surprising.

I’m happiest wandering a quiet European street looking for vintage finds, or the perfect sidewalk café where I can linger over a slow lunch that somehow becomes dinner, or finding the kind of hotel lobby where time politely disappears and I can people watch over bubbles and vespers all night long.

Las Vegas asks you to do exactly the opposite.

It’s loud.

It’s fast.

It never sleeps.

And somehow…

Every August, you’ll find me there.

Not because I love Las Vegas.

But because I love what happens there.

I’ve been attending Virtuoso Travel Week since 2019, and every year the gathering somehow feels even larger than the last. Thousands of luxury travel advisors. Hundreds of hotels, cruise lines, tourism boards, destination specialists, yacht companies, rail partners, and airlines.

Countless conversations compressed into just a few extraordinary days.

From the outside, it just looks like a conference.

From the inside, it feels much more like the annual reunion of an industry built entirely on relationships.

Luxury travel isn’t created by algorithms.

It isn’t created by booking engines.

And despite what social media might suggest, it certainly isn’t created by AI.

It’s created by people.

The Power of Partnership…

Travel Week isn’t just my chance to learn what’s new.

It’s my chance to hug the general manager who will later welcome you personally.

It’s an opportunity to finally shake hands with someone I’ve worked alongside for years from hundreds—or thousands—of miles away.

Or even the opportunity to sit down with a destination specialist who knows exactly which hidden vineyard, private guide, or family-owned restaurant belongs in my client’s next story.

Every meeting becomes another thread in a much larger tapestry.

What Happens in Vegas…

Our clients never see what happens.

They simply experience the finished result.

The room that somehow became a suite.

The dinner reservation no one else couldn’t secure.

The handwritten welcome note.

The surprise birthday cake.

The guide who somehow already knows your grandchildren’s names.

Those moments rarely happen by accident.

They’re built one conversation at a time.

Why I’ll Keep Coming Back…

That’s why, every August, I willingly trade cobblestone streets for casino carpets.

Because for one week, Las Vegas quietly becomes the center of luxury travel.

It becomes the place where I learn what hotels are opening before they’re announced, which destinations are quietly having a renaissance, where luxury is evolving next, and—perhaps most importantly—which partners continue to earn the trust of my clients.

And Then There Were Five…

This year feels especially meaningful because, for the first time, all five members of the Filling the Nest team will be attending together.

While our clients usually know us individually, this is where we become even stronger collectively.

We’ll divide and conquer appointments, compare notes over dinner, challenge each other with new ideas, and return home with thousands of fresh insights gathered from every corner of the luxury travel world.

It’s one thing to attend Virtuoso Travel Week.

It’s another to experience it as a team.

That means more relationships.

More perspectives.

More opportunities to ask better questions.

And ultimately, more possibilities for every traveler who trusts us with their story.

So no…

Las Vegas will probably never be the city I choose for vacation.

But it will always be the one I choose for purpose.

Because every August reminds me that extraordinary stories don’t always begin in the destinations I love most.

Sometimes they begin in the one city I never expected to matter quite so much.

Next week, we’ll be sharing dispatches from Virtuoso Travel Week—new hotels we’re excited about, destinations worth watching, remarkable partners I’m meeting, and the trends I believe will shape luxury travel in the year ahead. If you’re wondering where your next extraordinary story might begin, there’s a good chance we’ll discover part of the answer in the one city we never choose… yet never skip.