If you answered Guy Delisle’s Pyongyang, you certainly score bonus points . . . but the answer I was thinking of was Halloween.  In February.  

Last weekend, New York’s Javits Center hosted both the New York Times Travel Show AND Comic Con.  With all the Aruban dancers trotting past Panamanian Polleras on one side, and Predator hugging Wonder Woman on the other, I felt like one of the few people at the Center who showed up without a costume.   It was a battle of leisure activities, and jeans-clad visitors like me were the prizes.   So let’s size up the competitors:  

On the travel side, which still had a few unrented booths thanks to the economy, I could not help but notice how Panama boasted the largest, slickest booth in the Central America area, while the tiny table of Costa Rica, historically a tourism heavyweight, remained as quiet as a Spinal Tap record signing.   I’m sure it helps that Panamanian salsa star Ruben Blades also serves as his country’s Minister of Tourism. 

Korean drummers set the stage ablaze while Peru bribed everyone with pisco sours.  Virgin divers got dunked in the scuba tank (while hopefully holding their bladders).  Hi there, have a map of Thailand.  Take a brochure on extreme water sports in the Philippines.  Come to our destination!  Direct flights from JFK!   (Countries were no longer countries; they were theme parks.)

The Travel Writing 201 seminar, hosted by GoNomad’s Max Hartshorne, drew a full house of travel writers and those hoping to be.  Most important advice given: learn about the editor and the magazine/website you’re targeting, and write an individual query tailored to the needs of that publication.  Apparently, some people are still sending out generic form letters where the name after "Dear" appears in a different font.

By Sunday, though, the travel show’s train was running out of coal.  Some exhibitors began breaking down their tables hours before closing.  Whole continents began disappearing from the map.  Thankfully, the ticket collectors over a Comic Con had seen one too many Princess Leias and allowed my plainly-clothed fiancée and me to stroll in for free for the last hour.  But was the Con really about to close?  Thickets of costumed nerds and their significant others -- a parade of gore-laced faces and pervy, manga-inspired legshows that was somehow considered family friendly -- stood on top of one another to grab loot thrown from the Marvel pit.  The event guards failed to force anyone to leave at closing time.  Meanwhile, the vendors were in no hurry to break down their tables while they kept scoring on sales of original Star Wars tauntauns and cooing tribbles.   And $200 Obama Spideys (1st printing).

Bad economy?  Apparently not in the collectibles field, especially when spending $40 on a 30-year old action figure can bring back the taste of one’s happy, responsibility-free youth.   Sure, the prices are inflated like that of a stock on the market, but stocks don’t have posable limbs and can’t be dropped in a fish tank without getting ruined.  Stocks are just plain boring.  And besides, unlike collectibles, the stock market is sucking wind.

So who won?  For the visceral energy factor, Comic Con cleaned up.  But with airfares sinking like the price of tech stocks, we can expect that traveling will provide a fun a way to put some distance between people and their 401k statements.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to go plan my trip to Chile with my fiancée.  But the question is: which one of us gets to play with the tauntaun first?