The Smartest Press Trip Invite I've Seen in Years Breaks Almost Every PR Rule

Thank you all for the overwhelming response to my rebranding announcement last week! It’s been fun to see The Assignment Desk come to life!

This week I want to talk about a topic near and dear to my heart: press trips. I go on a couple dozen each year and have ever since I began travel writing in 2011 (fun fact: Back then I was the editor-in-chief of a AAA travel magazine that no longer exists, called Highroads). I receive about 10-15 invites per month, and most follow the same script.

As such, every travel writer knows how a press trip usually goes.

Your schedule lands in your inbox a week before departure. Breakfast at 7. Property tour at 8. Group activity at 9. Lunch. Tour. Interview. Another activity. Cocktail hour. Dinner. Networking. Repeat until you’re too exhausted to remember what city you’re in.

Every attendee visits the same places, eats the same meals, hears the same talking points—and comes home pitching the same story to all the same editors/outlets.

So when an invitation recently landed in my inbox that described itself as an “anti-press trip,” I stopped scrolling.

Not because of where it was.

Because of how it was designed.

It challenged one of the biggest assumptions in travel PR—and in doing so, may have stumbled onto a model that leads to stronger stories, happier journalists, and ultimately, better coverage for brands.

After the paywall, we’ll dissect the invitation line by line (shared with permission of course) and explore why this “anti-press trip” flips the traditional media tour on its head. I also share the publicist’s own explanation of how the idea came to be (because you know I asked!)—and why I think more brands should steal it.