zlacker

To get out of the house. When I started in tech, I went to conferences in pretty much every job. It was a lot of fun - and these were boring "legacy" businesses.

I remember I went to an Adobe conference in Chicago years and years ago, and they were giving away free iPad v1's to all participants. We were just in awe of these, and Adobe pretty much sabotaged the whole conference because no one was listening to the speakers, we were all just heads down playing with these new tablet thingies (not all of us even had smartphones at the time).

Sometimes I would take two days off and book my return trip for later. You are already there and your flight is covered - just pay extra for the stay and do touristy things.

Also - you can learn things.