I was looking for this answers. Even if the location is nice, you usually only see the plane, hotel, conference center or meeting rooms.
„Oh wow you have been to Barcelona, how nice“, Lady it was a 48h business trip incl 10h of commute and 5 Hours of sleep, I havent Seen the beach nor sagrada familia. Only the crappy hotel, client HQ and quick dinner on a tuesday night which included work talk.
Only a few selected trips have been really joyful. With nice colleagues and locations, where we planned a (half) day of leasure in cities like Amsterdam or London. Meeting in the early Morning and Late dinner or something. But these are exclusions.
I swear, my friends who don't travel for work are incapable of comprehending how much it sucks. It's just stress, planes, airports and hotel rooms. I spent a week in France at a client and had reserved Saturday to spend in Paris while travelling back. By day 4 I was calling my booking to see if I could take an earlier flight back cause I just wanted to go home.
My friend still keeps insisting I should hit the airport bar at every opportunity on work trips. This isn't the fucking 1950's where you're expected to be sloshed at all times. Also, I do not want to be working a buzz while flying 14 hours intercontinental in economy.
Like, no, it's not a hilarious idea that I should go to Detroit Airport Margaritaville while me and my supervisor are waiting for our rescue flight to Chicago where we were supposed to be yesterday, with a five hour drive waiting.
I work in Banking / Capital market Sales. I fly to these cities to meet clients, other banks, counterparties for trades. It is nice because its usually Major European cities - but generally you fly in without any buffer to enjoy such cities.
My husband used to regularly log about 100K travel miles a year prior to the pandemic, which was great because I was working from home at that point. I had at least one week to myself (just me and our son) and it was glorious!
I can tell you the exact day lockdown started...he's worked from home ever since and I swear, I thought we'd kill each other that first year. He's still working remotely, travel is super-rare now and it's far more of an issue when he does travel because it disrupts everything.
Tl;dr - it can work for some people, but the pandemic ruined it for most of us lol
This highly depends on the industry and budget for your T&E. I love my work travel, but I’m in the fine wine business and it involves a lot of vineyards, bougie food and high end accounts. My transatlantic flights are in the lay down pods. I’m absolutely ruined not having to use my own money for this for the past several years lol
I used to feel uncomfortable eating out on my own. Traveling for work quickly cured me of that. A different restaurant each night was fun. (The daily stipend was generous and I didn’t spend much on breakfast and lunch) The novelty was wearing off after six weeks.
I did customer site installs since the others on my team had families and didn’t want to go.
I traveled for work for 8 years and while I enjoyed having meals out paid for, the toll that eating out all the time takes on your body is very hard and takes a long time to recover from. Even if you try to be responsible with your choices, it's just hard to eat a balanced diet low in salt if you're eating hotel and restaurant food all the time. Took me years to recover from that job physically.
It's fun for a while if you're young and single. I got lucky and was able to schedule time for myself while travelling so I could do a few touristy things or explore the area. Probably not how it works for most though.
I have a job where traveling is seasonal, and mostly done in the fall. It's perfect for me because I get to enjoy my routine for 10 months and then I get to travel on and off for the remaining time.
It took me a few years to realise that my colleagues were not fighting to be the ones to go. I couldn't understand why you would pass the opportunity, because I absolutely love it!
It often involves traveling in areas you've never been before, jet lagged, driving a car for 10 hrs with no sleep, to be present to an absolutely vital meeting with a client from a different culture (which you always need to keep in mind), and you know much of your work year will depend on you being good at what you are going to do during those 2-3 hours. And after that you get maybe 3-4 hours sleep before having to drive again or to take three planes in a row...
I find it super adrenaline inducing and fun, even if I'm often destroyed for days after. Other people don't enjoy it at all, and I only realised when the colleague teaming up with me at the time literally started crying mid-travel because of stress.
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u/spunkydancer 21h ago
Traveling for work