Business travel

i mostly miss my bed... i don't sleep well away from home.

Being near an airport that's a hub for a major airline is a HUGE benefit, otherwise you're going to be two hops from a lot of your destinations. Try to stay loyal to one airline/hotel chain to get the most miles/points/benefits.

You will have experiences like when you're sitting in the South Bend, Indiana airport (which could easily pass for a bus terminal) waiting for a prop plane to take you home, there's no dataports on the pay phones, you haven't had dinner, it's January, and it's snowing. But hang in there. . .

Travelling for business every once in a while = CLASSIC
Travelling for business all the time for sales = DUD

Food is always hit-and-miss in mid-size airports, and actually can be dicey in bigger airports if you're not in the hub carrier's concourse (e.g., Terminal 2 at O'Hare).

Most amazing 'what-is-THIS-doing-here?!?!' airport find in the midwest: the (big) used book store in Milwaukee (blanking on the name right now -- Renaissance?)

"So where is my car?"
***pointing*** "That silver one over there."
"Oh. Thanks."

doing this atm

pretty much blows

lots of trips this year and I'm realizing I need some healthiness protips. Last trip (a week and change) had my digestive system a mess despite getting in walks and some gym time. heading off now for a 6 day trip and my stomach is already anxious! Also I hate flying!

I think I travel the perfect amount. I usually go to all our US offices over a couple of years (New York/Washington DC/Los Angeles/San Francisco/Dallas/Houston/Palo Alto), which can all be fun places to visit. Occasionally I get to go to weird places, like Orlando or Detroit, which is humorous, but not that enjoyable. Only overseas I've done is to Hong Kong, which was pretty awesome, because I never would have spent that type of money on a vacation for myself. Would like to do more overseas.

Downsides are I usually overeat and over drink. For lunches I've instituted only eating a salad to offset eating a large meal out every night. For some special projects, I really don't get to leave the office till late at night, so I don't get a chance to see much of the city. Every time I've been to NYC, I haven't been able to leave Manhattan.

Last trip I was very busy during most days and would end up catching up on work till like midnight in my hotel room. So sad.

And yeah, must of my trips involve catered meals for breakfast/lunch and going out for dinner... I don't know why listening to academics makes one hungry, maybe it'spowrr if suggestion because the coffee is always there, there's always snacks, etc.

I was on business travel earlier this week and ate a ton of unhealthy foods to offset the depression of staying at a comfort suites.

Right now, business trips = Germany, which means a lot of beer and heavy food and because I am generally visiting small towns, the hotels are lovely but tend not to have gyms so I'm feeling a little overburdened right now. I, too, need to work out how to make these trips more healthful as I'm going to do a lot more this year.

ate a ton of unhealthy foods to offset the depression

This. I eat terribly while traveling, justified by this "you poor thing, you deserve to have this thing you would not think of eating at home because you are having to be in this particular hellhole" (i'm looking at you Birmingham AL). Also, keeping irregular hours due to time zone changes and super long work days + having to catch up on stuff at night in a hotel room. Coming home is such a relief, in so many ways - back to a routine that keeps my life happy is a huge one.

I just opt for grilled chicken salads and grilled chicken sandwiches without mayo or honey mustard if fast food or diners are all that's available.

Also, had a personal trainer actually show me a hotel room-based workout to do

I brought my resistance bands with me... I can't complain about location because I am actually at an eco spa in the hills outside austin this time. However, my room isn't ready and all I want to do is get in a quick bit of exercise before going out for big dinner thing and I can't cause im in work attire :(

I'm awful at this as i'm super-frugal when i'm spending the company's money - which means i tend to stick to fast food. At least that's my excuse for stuffing myself with falafel and khachpuri. It's compounded by my obsession with free hotel breakfasts.

My issue is compounded by the fact that I'm dealing with people trying to sell me things worth hundreds of thousands if not millions so they feel obliged to wine and dine me (and I feel somewhat obliged to show willing). I think I am expensing 1 meal in 6 out of the last trip I was on.

^1st world problems I know, I know.

Hotel breakfasts are shit. Have cold cereal and load up on as much fruit as you can, giving you munching things thru-out the day and at airports so's you don't have to worry about hitting up a supermarket for produce when yer out & about

hoo boy I would have a lot to contribute if this was on 77

^^^this

I saw that movie Up in the Air before I did the kind of business travel that demonstrated to me omg that shit really happens, probably a lot, a fact my (formerly on-the-road-weekly) husband told me was the case. I didn't believe it, until I was actually on the road!

I knew I was traveling far too much at one point when I met up with another travel-a-lot friend for dinner in Sydney and all we talked about were our favorite suitcases ;_;

Sad to say, as I was repairing my roll aboard suitcase today I was thinking how good it was and how long it has lasted.

I like the fact that I do a fair amount of business travel, some of it to places that are pretty much off limits to most tourists. In the past couple of years I've been to Armenia, Poland, Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

That's something that's quite attractive about my job. I work in English language assessment and there's always the possibility i might get to visit places like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in the future.

I had a fantastic survival training session with an ex-SAS guy who specialises in keeping business travellers safe in unconventional locations. We were taught how to disable someone with a torch and why it's always best to have a window seat on planes, etc. It was really interesting.

Why a window seat? I always like toe get one but because I like to lean against the wall and also look out but I'm guessing this isn't the reason.

No, if the plane is taken hostage they almost always shoot people in the aisle seats first.

Whoa. Good to know, I guess.

Kiev and Shanghai are looming in my future work travel. Probably not until I've been back to Birmingham AL a few zillion times though.

also off to Kiev next week, tried to schedule my visit around the football but it just wasn't possible unfortunately

(Almost) eight years since my posts above and I haven't been back to South Bend to check out that aviation museum. The 'pay phones not having dataports' is thankfully no longer an issue :-)

As others noted above, you have to make exercise (or at least some physical activity) a priority, especially if your day consists of sitting for eight+ hours and two big meals. I prefer to exercise in the evening, but it's tough after a day like the above and a couple hours of e-mail catch-up staring you in the face.

The quality of the free breakfast generally correlates with that of the hotel, though I've had some disasters occur at some upscale chains (e.g., Wonder Bread dipped in something vaguely egg-ish and run through a toaster ^= French Toast.)

I had a fantastic survival training session with an ex-SAS guy who specialises in keeping business travellers safe in unconventional locations. We were taught how to disable someone with a torch and why it's always best to have a window seat on planes, etc. It was really interesting.

Coming back to this, i had an interesting meeting with the new travel security team at work this week. Apparently, it would cost £5000 a day to hire an armed protection team to look after me in Baghdad if i wanted to go (i do not).

Do other ilxors who travel for work get what you think are sufficient levels of support on security - not just semi-abstract terrorist threats but guidance on how to avoid getting robbed, whether roads are safe, health risks, etc? Mine has been pretty weak for the last few years but looks like it's improving.

I was on the red line luas without a bodyguard before and twas only the grace of god etc

Would probably choose 11pm on a Saturday night in Baghdad over Tallaght tbf.

I don't know whether to be relieved or a little jealous about business travel to locations that are different enough from routine to be potentially dangerous. I'm most often sent to Kansas City, Fort Worth, Austin, Atlanta, Newark.

I haven't been able to enjoy the work trips I've taken since having small kids at home. I know how much my wife gets worn out by solo parenting (because when she's on a trip I get _very_ worn out), so I minimize the time I'm gone as much as I can. So I'll do ninja trips from DC to New York on the Acela. It's like taxi-train-taxi-office-taxi-train-taxi-home, all inside 10 or 11 hours, so I can be back for bedtimes. A younger me would have felt able to visit friends and/or do fun NYC stuff. Once the kids are older and lower-maintenance I'll be able to.

Last year I was sent to Puerto Rico, which was great. My wife was able to join me partway through and have some vacation time. (Fun fact: the U.S. Small Business Administration puts Puerto Rico in the same region as New York.)

Once the kids are older and lower-maintenance I'll be able to.

Don't count on it, my friend. Solo parenting stays hard.

Yeah only places I've traveled for work: Baltimore, San Diego, Cleveland, Wilmington, Boston. No security issues really.

And yeah, mostly feel bad about being away and the trips are too short to enjoy myself anyway. There's a minimal sort of boost from just getting a nice hotel room to oneself and enjoying a leisurely dinner on company dime. Even with a busy schedule work travel feels less busy and more relaxed than shuttling between work and childcare.

i love traveling for work, i don't do it often though, maybe 1-2 conferences a year. i've been to some cool places - mexico city, austin, charleston, NYC, san antonio, kansas city. librarians drink a lot at conferences and the night scene is as much a part of the conference as the programming imo. they are a lot of fun. i feel bad for my wife though, it is really hard for her w/ two little kids at home. we just moved closer to family though so now she will have more help when i'm gone.

no real security issues lol. mexico city i guess i was warned about taking only official hotel taxis but they were significantly more expensive than regular taxis so i didn't take the advice

a good friend from college works some for some international development firm and used to be routinely sent to various places in the middle east - egypt, morocco, jordan, israel, she got really tired of it though

I'm an academic, I've never heard of someone in my line of work getting security support.

when I was in Morocco with a student group we got hassled by the border patrol because a student had brought a butt plug and that wasn't allowed. we had to talk security out of detaining him, and that's not a situation I was prepped for. whether it was because of that or for other reasons we had state security "covertly" following us around for a couple of days thereafter.

Marcos I have a friend who goes to those library conferences. He says they're surprisingly wild -- he has been propositioned by married women, although he is in a serious relationship and totally not the kind to do such things.

Not hugely surprised that academics don't get proper support but they absolutely should. The university has a duty of care but will generally just pass it on to the institution being visited. They are sometimes better with student recruitment staff going to risky places but I have heard some horror stories.

xp yea i think there is a lot of that kind of thing happening, although i think some library conferences are trying to tone it down, there's been a few incidents around unwanted advances and a lot of conferences are now are adopting anti-harassment policies or codes of conduct

xp oh my god euler how embarrassing must that have been for the student, wow

it was pretty bad for the student, this was with undergrads at an american university, but he was an international student from Japan, so the dynamics were even weirder. I think the other students didn't really understand/care what was going on (and we weren't involving them) but between us, the student, the border guards, it was a mess.

they took the butt plug too, rip

Guys, you're not helping dispel the male fantasy of the strait-laced librarian who turns into a libertine sexual dynamo when she has a few glasses of chardonnay, takes off her glasses, and lets down her bun.

Not that I specifically have that as a fantasy. It's something I've heard about though. From, like, other guys.

I think it's partly just that librarians and hence library conferences are disporportionately female, so if you are a male librarian at a drinking event the odds kind of go up that *that* librarian will wind up hitting on you.

gonna venture to say security support is not a thing in the us or canada

Has anyone come across a platform / app called cu1tur3wiz@rd before? It has been bought in (at presumable expense) to help employees at my company understand other countries / cultures and help with business travel and international meetings. It seems hugely offensive!

I've only had a quick look but it suggests that Ukrainians born before 1965 'lack the skills to compete in a liberalised economy', while those born after 1983 are 'extremely nationalistic'. The second entry on Russian culture is 'Fatalism' which explains that Russians are raised to 'take no responsibility for themselves'. Poles over 50 will treat women with 'old world gentility' while those under 35 will almost certainly not. The Irish are basically a great bunch of lads but prefer politeness to honesty - they're also welcoming to all races so if you encounter any hostility, it's personal rather than bigotry...

If I wasn't busy today I've had spent hours on it.

Traveling on business to Sidney, Australia? Check out this list of tips by the BBC. (link: http://hubs.ly/H04qtFM0) hubs.ly/H04qtFM0

Is Sidney expecting me?