Featured Writer: Travels with Curley

I rarely have to travel for work, but it doesn’t’ stop me from complaining and dreading the few times a year that I have to board a flight for business.  As much as I love traveling for personal reasons, my dislike of business travel is equally as intense.  Perhaps it’s because I miss these guys as soon as I walk out the door?

Or perhaps it’s because we typically have good luck when traveling for vacation, but I have the worst luck with flight delays and bad weather when traveling for business.  Okay, it doesn’t help that my next trip is to Sweden and the high in Stockholm today was 31°F with snow in the forecast.

I can’t blame this aversion to business travel on the work itself because I really like my job (most days).  I also understand that business travel can never compare to personal travel because it’s not vacation (unless you have Lesley’s job in which case I think we would all happily board a plane for work!).  However, I am going to make a pre-New Year’s resolution and start trying to focus on the positives of business travel.  Here is the list of things that I will try to focus on or do during my upcoming trips instead of dwelling on the days away from my boys:

• Flying business class and earning lots of frequent flier miles for future vacations with my family
• Watching movies (not cartoons) without interruption on the plane.
• I will try to run every day in order to see a little more of the places that I’m visiting.  It’s going to be tough with the short days in northern Europe at this time of year, but at a minimum I will get on a treadmill in the hotel fitness center to keep my endorphins firing and energy level up.  I think I make too many excuses for not exercising while I’m traveling for work.
• I am going to take time in each city to explore a little.  It’s easy to go straight from meetings back to the hotel and then get sucked into catching up on email, but I am going to make a conscious effort to take some downtime and explore.

Do you travel a lot for work?  If so, do you dread it or have you come to appreciate certain aspects?  What do you do to stay sane and have fun on the road?

In the next month or so, I will be traveling to Sweden (Stockholm), Germany (Cuxhaven area & Berlin), and Amsterdam.  I won’t have much free time in any of these places, but I certainly welcome suggestions for things to do on a compressed schedule or great places to run.  The only exception is Stockholm.  I will have almost a full day (albeit a Sunday) to explore before my meetings start early Monday morning.  I plan on bundling up and seeing as much as possible.