The 3rd Travel Bloggers Unite Conference takes place 19th - 22nd April, 2012.  It may be 5 months away, but now is the best time to start thinking + planning your travel arrangements.  Here are some handy hints on the best ways to get to TBU Umbria.

Where?

TBUMBR is taking place just 5 minutes from Assisi, in the beautiful, landlocked region of Umbria, situated in central Italy.

The venue for the conference is the fabulous four star Valle di Assisi Hotel & Resort **** which we will be taking over for the duration of the conference!

 Here is the address: 

Valle di Assisi Hotel & Resort

Via San Bernardino da Siena, 116
06088
Santa Maria degli Angeli

Flying To TBU Umbria

If you are planning on flying in for the conference, then there are two main airports you should look for.

1. Perugia (PEG): 20 minutes from conference venue
2. Rome Fiumicino (FCO): 2hours 15 minutes from the conference venue.

These are also the two airports where we will run FREE transfers for delegates.  More information on these later.

Perugia (PEG)

Perugia Airport is really convenient, yet there are not many flights at present.  So do keep an eye on this page to see what may be available.  Currently Ryanair fly from London-Stansted, Belleair fly from Tirana and SkyBridge fly from Milan Malpensa.

We anticipate the Ryanair service from London Stansted to be most used by delegates, with flights currently costing approximately £120 return.

Rome (FCO)

This will be the main airport for the majority of delegates attending TBU Umbria.  It is one of two major hubs in Italy and is served by the majority of international airlines.  When looking into the flights, I found lots of options and plenty of cheap flights to Rome with Skyscanner.  I used their website to get the following list of cheapest flights available today (16/11/11)

UK

• London Gatwick - Easyjet - £75 return
• Manchester - Swiss - £120 return
• Edinburgh - Air France - £147 return

Europe

• Copenhagen - Norwegian - £110 return
• Stockholm - Brussells Airlines - £140 return
• Paris - EasyJet - £99 return
• Madrid - EasyJet - £65 return
• Barcelona - Vueing - £67 return
• Amsterdam - Alitalia - £102 return
• Berlin - EasyJet - £108 return
• Munich - Alitalia - £79 return
• Vienna - TuiFly - £79 return

North America

• New York - TAP Portugal - £497 return
• Chicago -Finnair - £557 return
• Las Vegas - Delta - £594 return
• Seattle - British Airways - £597 return
• Los Angeles - Finnair - £642 return
• Vancouver - Condor - £650 return
• Toronto - Brussels Airlines + Jet Airways - £530 return
• Montreal - KLM - £586 return

FREE Airport Transfers

We will provide delegates with FREE transfers from either Rome (FCO) or Perugia (PEG) airports.  However there are a few points to consider if you are thinking of flying into Rome (FCO):

Arrival Transfers

1. You will need to arrive on either Thursday 19th or Friday 20th April
2. There will be FIXED times for the transfers, so you will want to book your flight around these.
3. Transfer times won't be
4. We will announce the confirmed times as soon as possible

Departure Transfers

1. Whether you depart on Sunday 22nd (conference day 2), Monday 23rd or Wednesday 25th (after blog trips) we will get you back to the airport
   
2. These will be a little different to arrivals and are dependent on slightly different factors
3. We will announce these as soon a as possible

Unsure about booking flights?

1. Use the arrival transfer times as the determining factor for booking flights, you don't need to worry too much about the return details, we'll get you back to Rome airport :)
2. Keep an eye on the dedicated transfers page (not yet live) for more information

We recommend you don't book flights until you know the pickup times for arrival transfers.

If you book a flight before the transfer times are announced then you may end up having to wait a while for a coach.

Train To Umbria

If you have the time, then you may want to consider travelling to TBU Umbria by train, maybe fitting in some pre or post conference sight seeing of your own.  Italy is gorgeous and travelling through the countryside by train is definitely a great way to do it.

To plan your journey, you may want use a Rail Europe pass perhaps.  Another alternative is the Trenitalia website my colleagues in Italy recommend.

The station you need to look for is "Assisi" and it is actually situated closer to a small town called Santa Maria than Assisi itself.

Assisi train station is less than 10 minutes away by car from Valle di Assisi Hotel & Resort, or it is an hours walk.  If you tell us your arrival times in advance, then we will happily arrange for free pick ups on Thurs 19th + Friday 20th from the station.  We will arrange any train pickups 2 weeks before arrival, so we have plenty of time!

• Check out the conference schedule, with suggested dates and 'itinerary'
• Find out more about the TBU Umbria Conference Talks
• Check out our friends at Skyscanner for cheap flights to Italy