The trip kicked off at 8 a.m. at New York's JFK airport, where some 100 women met to fly to San Francisco to meet another 100 female power players for a series of panels, meals, and, above all, networking. The esteemed attendees included Katie Dowd, the digital director at Hillary for America, Katia Beauchamp, the cofounder and CEO at Birchbox, Lindsay Shookus, a producer for SNL, and many more.

Among all the women in the terminal preparing to board the plane, I was probably the least important person. I haven't founded a company, won an award outside of a school setting, or been referred to as an influencer. More proof that I was a fish out of water: the start of the trip was only my fourth week as Refinery29's associate tech editor, and our company's chief operating officer, Amy Emmerich (my boss' boss' boss' boss), was among the esteemed on-board attendees.

Although I knew that some women would talk to me in my capacity as a reporter covering the trip, I wasn't sure any of them would want to network with me after finding out my credentials. But there was no reason to worry. Throughout the entire trip, I wasn't treated as someone who was less accomplished or even as just a reporter — I was treated as someone whose thoughts and ideas were just as valid as the CEO sitting one row over.

The atmosphere upon boarding the plane was expectedly buzzy, yet what was less expected was that this level of excitement would keep up for the entire six-and-a-half hour-long flight.

"On a plane, we have such a captive audience," said Anne Fulenwider, Marie Claire's editor-in-chief. "We thought, what can we do if we get all these women in the air?

I thought I knew exactly what would happen: When the captain of the all-female crew announced that we could take out our devices, everyone would log on to check and reply to emails, plug in their headphones to focus on writing memos, and stay attached to the plane's Wi-Fi for most of the trip. These are very busy women, after all. Instead, the majority of attendees from all industries imaginable — tech, fashion, politics — remained standing in the aisles, chatting about everything from their latest business ventures to adventures and misadventures with their kids back home (there was also a pumping station on board to accommodate new moms).

Despite my tendency to fall asleep the second a plane leaves the ground, I was too excited by all the momentum to do so. Pre-scheduled interviews aside, I wanted a chance to have an uninterrupted moment to chat with Michelle Chila, senior vice president of marketing and PR at Tacori, and Carbon38 president Caroline Gogolak.

"We tried really hard to cross-pollinate from tech, entertainment, fashion, business...women who have disrupted industries or created industries where there weren't any," Fulenwider said.

The energy level on the plane remained so high that it was hard to hear loudspeaker announcements and even harder to get everyone to take their seats as we began our descent into San Francisco.