We know a marriage where both travel consultants. We often joke that they should write a book called "Marriage in three days a week" because they only see each other from Thursday night to Sunday night most weeks. Sure, they take great vacation with all the frequent flyer miles and hotel points, and either stays at home to manage the household, while the others dine at restaurants every night and returns home to all tasks waiting to do.
Like many others, they learned to be comfortable on the road so your travel times are a source of new experiences and stories rather than a test. If you learn to be comfortable in your surroundings, you will do the job better and last longer in this demanding field.
There are two types of advisory functions in the perspective of travel time. One type of consultant is the true road warrior who is in a different city every week, often visiting two or three different customers and stay only a few days each location. The other moves to the same destination each week to work on a long term of several months. What kind of ending depends travel schedule with his personality in his abilities.
Whatever type of travel program that has, apparently there are some things you can do to make you feel more comfortable on the road.
Sign up for a loyalty program for frequent hotel points as you can. The greatest benefits come on a business trip when I get free family holiday after. All these trips to Pittsburgh you could buy a trip to Honolulu or Prague or wherever your heart takes you.
Whenever possible, use the same airline and hotel chain for each city. This helps you earn points faster, and also provides a level of comfort and familiarity for you from the moment you arrive in the city. Not all the Marriott is like any other Marriott, but there are enough similarities between them that will begin to feel at home quickly.
Packing for Travel
Establish a routine for packing. Make a list of everything you know you need for a trip, including items such as a toothbrush and cell phone charger. Go to the list every time you make a suitcase.
If you do not follow this advice, you will end up spending $ 200 on a device "reload all" and using a toothbrush that scam hotel gums.
Always you supposed to carry your luggage yourself. If you are not sure you need it, do not take it. You can always buy one there. (Do not accept commitments in places that do not have stores.)
Pack something comfortable to wear in your room and the clothes that you can wear to work at the hotel.
Plan to sleep on something that does not mind being seen wearing in public. In the event of a fire, evacuate hotels two floors above and two floors below, even if it's just a small fire in a garbage. This is what the speakers above the bed is for.
All luggage alike. Make your bag easy to spot on the carousel and less likely to be stolen with strategically placed strips of tape or a large pink bow.
The military knows that clothes do not crease rolled. Do not bend, roll. Turn inner jackets, double-up collar and shoulder to shoulder press.
Think you pack as in customs and airport security. For example, many airlines will not allow you to make steel tipped darts in his hand luggage. (Yes, one of us have learned the hard way. It's not who you think.) Distribute all medications in their original containers, especially for prescription drugs.
Buy two of anything that daily use, such as cosmetics, razors, toothbrushes, etc. Leave a home game. Package toiletries once and leave them unwrapped. This way you do not have to worry that you forgot something essential and not be until the middle of the night in a strange hotel room. When something happens on the road, replace it. (This is easier if you use common brands sold across the country.)
After only a few weeks of travel, you know exactly what you should pack and what not to do.
Hotel Lounge
If you are traveling in the same city every week, choose a hotel you feel comfortable and make friends with the people at the desk and in housekeeping. If you can commit to a number of weeks, they might even give you a break on the price of the room, which is also good for your client.
Once you have tried a couple of different rooms in different parts of the hotel, you will begin to identify specific things we like or not. In a few weeks, you probably have a favorite room. Do not be afraid to ask every week. Staying in the same room each week can increase your sense of comfort and is easier to remember what room you are. Each of us was frustrated at least once while trying to open a door of the room, to realize that the key does not work because it is the room where we were last week, and no idea what the They assigned room this week.
If you followed our instructions for packing and bought duplicates of all your toiletries and needs of your trip, you can check a bag boyfriend the weekend rather than take home with you. Let your machine with a dry cleaner the weekend and return on Monday for a new wardrobe without carrying a bag with you to the airport. That's freedom!
Make friends with people who have control of food. If you eat all your meals on the room service menu soon they get bored with the choices. Encourage the person answering service line to the room to give suggestions.
When Christine was working in a city that is not considered safe to leave the hotel and walk around at night, he called room service one night and that number, the saddest voice he could muster, "I'm hungry and nothing on the menu looks good tonight. Help me! "
Room Service The Voice laughed and said, "Miss Lambden, do not worry. After all these months, I know what you like. Let me surprise."
Besides the best meat and fresh salad always served by the room service, the waiter brought a glass of red wine and said:. "The boss said to tell you he knows he does not like red wine but this is special Try with the steak. Alternate a piece of meat with a sip of wine. "
She still talks about that steak. After that night, she never had to see the service menu in the room again. When he called, he said, "Maybe a fish night?" or "I'm in the mood for some chocolate."
Remember, if you are tired of the hotel menu, just imagine what it feels like the boss.
Since you can not eat all the time, here are some other ways to fill a night in a hotel room:
Call your mother.
Read.
Go to the movies.
University libraries are often open late. Learn something.
Exercise. Remember college Freshman Fifteen? The life of a consultant includes restaurant meals and too few long walks in the park.
If you exercise at home, try to exercise in the same way when traveling. Find out if it's safe to walk / run outside nearby. This is also a great way to find restaurants and pubs traveling books do not.
If you exercise in a gym at home, stay in a hotel with a gym and use. If no gym available at the hotel, remember that many national chains have memberships that let you work in all cities. As national chains of hotels and restaurants, gyms are a great way to find a family atmosphere in an unknown location.
Exploring new cities is a great way to exercise and enjoy their time on the road. Look at the landscape. Shop. Ask the people at the hotel and at work you need to be sure to see while you're in town.
We know a consultant who has succeeded in a year, to see Niagara Falls (working in Buffalo), the Arch in St. Louis, the wine country of Napa Valley, six shows of Broadway and Fort Lauderdale during spring vacation.
Did you know that Kansas City is the city of fountains? In winter, the city is slowly stays as some sources that you may see frozen ice where water flows in summer. Just wonderfull.
Did you know that you can visit the Budweiser Clydesdales at Grant's Farm in St. Louis? If you think you are fun to watch the Super Bowl, imagine how beautiful they are about.
These opportunities can not be resubmitted. Do not spend every night in his hotel room.
Each city has something unique to offer and the people who live there will be happy to help you discover what is wonderful in his hometown.
Individual life on the road
The lifestyle of constant travel is often more attractive for simple people who have a family at home waiting for them every week. For these consultants, the only challenge is finding a way to keep a house when you are not there during the week.
Here are some tips:
Ask a friend or neighbor pick up your mail once or twice during the week.
Install automatic timers birth at home. Install outdoor lights with motion sensor. This makes it look like someone is home and protect your stuff. (It also makes bats and opossums find another tribunal to live, but could also be a thing of Austin.)
Hide valuables. Burglars know all about looking in the freezer for your jewelry, but think to look in the bag of potting soil in the garage? Tip: Talk with someone you trust where it has been hidden ... you remember all the major points to consider and you forget that you have chosen.
Doing a little crazy with all that money you earn as a consultant and hire a cleaning service to come and clean your house while you are away. If you have a lawn, hire a triage service, too. The last thing you want to do when you finally get home is clean, and you will be happier in this job if you do not feel that you neglect the tasks.
If possible, have a house sitter trust living at home. Then you will not have to worry at all.
Besides the maintenance of your home, a person on the road has to maintain a social life. When you are out of town all week, it's easy to be excluded from the conversations of your friends in the plans for the weekend. You must work harder to maintain these friendships in the home, especially if they are also forming new friendships in the city where he works.
It is not completely unknown to the consultants assigned to the same customer every week to form friendships or romantic relationships, in the city where they work. Having relationships with people across the country can be a great benefit professionally because its network was expanded to include all colleagues, too.
Do not date someone in the client company. This can be annoying. (Yes, we know. His situation is different. You manipulate and old. We would like to believe, but in our experience it rarely works that way. However, this is still good advice for everyone.)
Married with children
Life on the road is more difficult for those who have families at home. You miss and you feel guilty about leaving them behind, and guilty when you enjoy yourself without them.
The same attractions that drive the movement of a person can cause you to lose your family more. You're thinking, "Kids love it" or "Niagara Falls for me? I think not!"
Here are some tips to make travel easy when you miss your family:
Write long letters saying everything you said if you were at home. Buy a fax machine for home so you can send them before going to bed and family can play with breakfast. (We know. Email works just fine. Just do not do it. Handwritten letters mean more. They are right.)
Give the fax number of the hotel for your family or create a personal e-fax number. Encouraging letters from home. Also drawings and newsletters and anything else that will make you feel closer. Almost all children could benefit from the exercise of occasional writing, and most of them already know how to operate a computer.
Buy a small digital camera or use your cell phone to take photos and make a slideshow "day in the life" for children. Take pictures of your day from the moment you wake up until the time you get to bed - pictures of his hotel room, his breakfast plate, his cabinet and colleagues, the library stops after work, you restaurants love - everything! (Trust us, you'll love.)
Driving Strange (translation: "New To You") Places
Weather conditions and driver courtesy rules vary from one city to another. In some cities, driving is a brutal competition and it is considered rude to slow suicide or yellow light. Someone will honk at you or run into you. In others, dirty looks if you give in and let a car waiting to merge in front of you. In most rural roads, lack of waves to move the drivers that the mark of a stranger.
No matter where you are, these tips will help mitigate the impact of behavior on the road:
Get a map when you arrive. If you know where you are going, you are much less likely to end up in the wrong place.
If the back of a car on the road, the first step should be to hang up. Better yet, go handsfree when you're driving. Best of all, hang up and drive.
Rent a car in the same agency each week and be nicer. Usually, the same officers are on duty every Monday morning, so you finally know you and can offer fresh or convertible Jag for a week at no additional cost.
Not every state or city has a "right on red" law. Check with the car rental agency or to find a "no right on red" sign before assuming that is legal at an intersection where it is.
If you are stopped for speeding, running red lights, driving in the wrong, or worse direction, hit something, be kind to everyone. Of course, this is true when not traveling, too, but you have a better chance to make your meeting or flight if you deal with the situation.
In New York or Boston (London or Beijing), take a taxi or public transport. Some warnings say "Do not try this at home." As for driving in these places, the rule is: "Do not try this on the road." In other words, ask someone of your destination or consult a travel guide to see if it is convenient to take you around.
If you are facing their first winter in a climate of snow, ask someone to teach you how to drive in icy conditions before the first snowstorm. You may feel stupid, and you'll certainly laugh at you, but the first time you feel your car begins to slide, you will be glad you did.
For us, just say "I'm from Texas" is often enough to have our customers to provide free driving lessons, ice conditions or not.
Air Travel Tips
Since 9/11, track rules for air travel and go through security checks has become more of a challenge, but the airlines have made a sincere effort to help.
Each airline and airport site has information about security requirements and how long it will take to reach your door. Experienced travelers quickly learn to avoid the busiest times of day and week. In fact, we do not know a single board that the flight would consider traveling the day before Thanksgiving in all circumstances.
airport sites will also give information on other services available at the terminals. For example, did you know that the Hong Kong airport has showers and rooms where you can take a nap? After a long flight across the Pacific Ocean, a shower is a wonderful way to spend your stop three hours between connecting flights.
Portland Airport, Oregon has a large shopping center. You can get all your Christmas shopping done between flights and have the items you have bought the house sent. Oh, and did we mention that Oregon has no sales tax?
San Francisco Airport is twenty galleries that run different museum's art, culture and science exhibits on a regular schedule. At SFO, you can not help but be entertained and educated while you're traveling.
Here are some other tips to make air travel easier:
When making reservations, ask for a seat near the front of the plane. Return airlines assign seats to the face and families traveling with children tend to plan beyond business travelers, so the cries of the children three years are usually in the back of the plane.
Always ask exit row. Children are not allowed, and legroom is obtained.
Use earplugs or invest in good anti-noise headphones if he goes to sleep. People talk louder in airplanes.
The planes were only 3% moisture, so they quickly dehydrate. Bring a bottle of water on board. (This will also keep your feet swelling.) To reduce the cost and weight of the baggage down, take an empty bottle and ask the attendant to fill it for you. On international flights, there is usually a source of water available for passengers using.
When they say, "Limit two hand luggage," suppose they really mean and be prepared to review everything, but your purse, briefcase and laptop. A good alternative if you are pressed is "gate control" their bags. Especially with small commuter flights, this means you get your bags immediately when you get off the plane without stopping at the baggage claim.
Pay attention to the security word occasionally. Like washing your car to make it rain, just a good karma. We asked, and yes, most flight attendants give voice also felt stupid as it sounds, but the fact that no one is listening is simply your job harder.
To avoid stiff neck from sleeping on a plane, ask the flight attendant for a blanket, roll and wrap it around his neck before bedtime. His head did not roll from side to side, no snoring and will not be nearly as ridiculous as these people drooling over his neighbor's shoulder. They make C-shaped pillows that do this, but it's just one more thing to take with you. We prefer to travel light.
When traveling, do everything possible to make your life easier. When you have fun, they are better prepared to perform at work, and you will have more success.
Cabins and conference rooms are the same everywhere. The job does not change, but take the time to make friends with people around you, at work and in the hotel, will make all the difference in the world in the way you do it.