You know that guy sitting next to you on the plane who wants to chat? I’m that guy. I find one of the first things people ask is “are you traveling for work?”. In the strict sense, yes. But primarily I’m travel for life. (hat tip to Chris Guillebeau for the phrase.)
I’m lucky enough to travel for business fairly often. When I do, I stick to the following rules, and it makes all the difference between work travel, and life travel.
- Spend as little time in your hotel room as possible. You experience nothing here.
- No chain restaurants, ever. Remember that meal you had at Applebees in Tulsa? Didn’t think so.
- Always order the local beer. These days every city has a beer. Try it.
- Go for a morning run. There is no better way to experience a good portion of the city quickly. And yes, you do have time before your morning meetings.
- Be grateful. Someone is willing to pay you to fly (on a plane, in the sky) to a city half way across the country, give you a place to sleep that is nicer than most peoples homes, and pay for all your meals. All because they value whatever it is you do enough to want some facetime. Think about that, and then reevaluate how upset you should be that it took an extra 15 minutes to get from LA to NY. As Louie C.K. says, “Everything is amazing and no one is happy”