You said about Prague: "...[do] folks who live outside of that region not care about the additional hop of travel to get to it?" This gets cited often, and I don't really understand why. There are VERY few European cities that are reachable directly from the US (or Asia for that matter). Most require transiting some kind of major hub (London, Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam to name a few). There will always be exceptions, I am sure you can get to Stockholm directly from the US East Coast, but not from the West Coast. I am sure a very large percentage of the IETF attendees from the US went through London or Frankfurt (or a small number of alternatives) to get to Stockholm on the two occasions when we met there. Since I travel to Norway on a more or less regular basis, I am used to (and quite happy to) go through Frankfurt or London, it's just a fact of life especially if you factor in the "preferred carrier" (personal or corporate). Prague may be an "extra hop," but depending on schedules you might well get to your destination (hotel) just as quickly as you would for getting from CDG to central Paris or LHR to central London. If we restrict European cities to the ones with direct flight connections from other continents, we're really limiting the choices. Let's be a little more realistic and consider actual travel "pain" from the top hubs in Europe, assuming we can't (always) meet in those places. I do understand that the extra hop does add some cost, which is why I always consider trains as a reasonable alternative, albeit not a particularly fast one. For example, the cost for a First Class train ticket from Frankfurt to Prague was 98 Euros. I am not suggesting that this is always going to be a reasonable alternative, and I am worried that the mere mention of "train" on this list may result in a flame war, but still... Ole Ole J. Jacobsen Editor and Publisher, The Internet Protocol Journal Cisco Systems Tel: +1 408-527-8972 Mobile: +1 415-370-4628 E-mail: ole@xxxxxxxxx URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj Skype: organdemo