We know a marriage where both are traveling 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 of the week. Of course, take great vacation with all frequent flyer miles and hotel points, and either stays at home to look after the house, while others dine at restaurants every night and returns home waiting for all tasks that can be done.
Like many others, who have learned to be comfortable on the road so their travel schedules are a source of new experiences and stories rather than a constraint. If you learn to be comfortable in your environment, you will do the job better and last longer in this demanding field.
There are two types of advisory functions perspectives travel schedule. One type of consultant is the true road warrior who is in a different city every week, often visiting two or three different clients and stay only a few days each location. The other type is moved to the same destination each week to work on a long-term commitment of several months. What kind of journey that ends the schedule with a lot depends on your personality on your skills.
Whatever type of journey times have you, there are some things you can do will seem more comfortable on the road.
Register for a loyalty program for frequent hotel points as you can. The greatest benefits come in business when you get free after family vacations. All these trips to Pittsburgh you could buy a trip to Honolulu or Prague or where your heart guide you.
Whenever possible, use the same airline and hotel chain for each city. This helps you to earn points faster, and also provides a level of comfort and familiarity for you from the moment you arrive to the city. Not everyone is like any other Marriott Marriott, but there are enough similarities between them as they begin to feel at home quickly.
Packing for Travel
Establish a routine for packing. Make a list of everything you know you need for any trip, including items such as a toothbrush and cell phone charger. Review the list each time the bag is full.
Failure to follow this advice, you're likely to end up spending $ 200 on a device "reload everything" and using a toothbrush that hotel scam gums.
Always supposed to carry your luggage yourself. If you are not sure you need it, take it. You can always buy. (Do not accept compromises in places that do not have stores.)
Pack something comfortable to wear in your room and clothes can be used to work in the hotel.
Plan to sleep in something you do not mind being seen wearing in public. In the event of a fire, hotels evacuate two floors above and two floors down, 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 make wrinkles laminates. Do not bend, roll. Turn inside jackets, double neck and shoulder to shoulder press.
Think about what you pack the point of view of the customs and airport security. For example, many airlines do not allow steel tipped darts in his hand luggage. (Yes, one of us has learned the hard way. Do not you think.) Carry all medications in their original containers, especially prescription drugs.
Buy two of everything that you use every day, such as cosmetics, razors, toothbrushes, etc. Leave a home together. Packaging toilet once and let packaged. This way you do not have to worry that you forgot something essential and not seen 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 throughout the country.)
After only a few weeks of travel, you know exactly what you need to pack and what does not.
Hotel Room
If you are traveling in the same city each week, choose a hotel that is comfortable and make friends with people at the front desk and maintenance. If you can commit to a number of weeks, you 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 that you like or dislike. In a few weeks, you probably have a favorite room. Do not be afraid to do every week. Staying in the same room each week can increase your feeling of comfort and is easier to remember what the room is. Each of us was frustrated at least once while trying to open a door of the room, to realize that the key doesn 't work because the room we had last week, and we have no idea what the room we were assigned this week.
If you followed our instructions for packing and bought duplicates of all your toiletries and travel requirements, you can check a suitcase boyfriend weekend instead of take home with you. Leave your clothes with a weekend of dry cleaning and returning on Monday for a new wardrobe without carrying a bag with you to the airport. It is freedom!
Make friends with people who have control of food. If you eat all your meals on the room service menu soon get bored with the choices. Encourage the person answering service line to the room to give suggestions.
When Christine was working in a city where it is not considered safe to leave the hotel and walk around at night, she called room service one night and this number, the more lamentable voice he could muster, "I'm hungry and nothing in the menu looks good tonight. Help me! "
Room Service 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 never used for 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 especially Try. with meat. Substitute a bite of meat with a sip of wine. "
She still talks about that meat. After that night, it was never about the service menu in the room again. When she called, she 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 how you feel the head.
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 a movie.
University libraries are often open late. Learn something.
Work out. Remember college Freshman Fifteen? The life of a consultant has too many restaurant meals and very few long walks in the park.
If you exercise at home, try to exercise the same way when traveling. Find out if it is safe for walking / jogging outdoors near the hotel. It is also a great way to find local restaurants and pubs that travel books do not.
If you exercise in a gym at home, stay at a hotel with a gym and use. If no gym available at the hotel, remember that many national chains have memberships that allow you to work in any city. As the 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. See the sites. 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 of St. Louis, the wine region of Napa Valley six Broadway shows, 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 of the sources that you may see frozen ice where water flows in the summer. Just beautiful.
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 close.
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 about his hometown.
Individual life on the road
The lifestyle of constant travel is often more attractive to the only people who are homeless family 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 collect your mail once or twice during the week.
Install automatic timers birth at home. Install motion detector lights outdoors. This makes it look like someone is home and protect your stuff. (It also makes bats and possums find another court for a living, but it can be a thing of Austin.)
Hide valuables. Burglars know all about looking in the freezer for your jewelry, but think to look in that bag of potting soil in the garage? Tip: Talk to someone you trust where he hid ... you remember all the places to consider, and you forget that you have chosen.
Do a little crazy with all that money you make as a consultant and hire a cleaning service to come and clean your home during your absence. If you have a lawn, hire a patio, too. The last thing you want to do when you finally get the house clean, and you will be happy in this job if you do not feel tasks negligence.
If possible, have a trusted nanny house living at home. Then you will not have to worry at all.
In addition to keeping your home, one person on the road is to maintain a social life. When you are out of town all week, it's easy to be excluded from the conversations of friends in plans for the weekend. You must work harder to maintain those friendships at home, especially if you also are forming new friendships in the city where you work.
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. With ties to people across the country can be a great benefit professionally because your network is expanded to include all of their colleagues, too.
No date someone in the client company. This can be annoying. (Yes, we know. Your situation is different. You manipulate and old. We like to believe, but in our experience it rarely works that way. Still, it remains 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 for leaving them behind, and guilty when you have fun without them.
The same attractions that drive the motion of a person can cause you to lose your family more. You find yourself thinking, "Kids love it" or "Niagara Falls by myself? I think not!"
Here are some tips to make travel easy when you miss your family:
Write long letters saying what would have 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 as well. But it is not. Letters handwritten mean more. Just do it.)
Give fax number of the hotel for your family or creating a personal e-fax number. Encouraging letters from home. Also drawings and report cards and everything that will make you feel closer. Almost all children could benefit from 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 in time to go to bed - pictures of his hotel room, breakfast plate, his cabin and colleagues library to go through after work, I love restaurants -everything! (Trust us, you will love it.)
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 is considered rude or suicidal slow for a yellow light. Someone will honk at you or run. 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 drivers marked as an outsider.
No matter where you are, these tips will help mitigate the impact of driving on the move:
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, your first step should be to hang up. Better yet, go hands free while driving. Best of all, hang up and drive.
Rent a car in the same agency each week and nicer. Usually, the same officers are on duty every Monday morning, so I finally know you and can offer fresh or convertible Jag for a week, for free.
Not every state or city has a "right on red" law. Check with the rental car or find a "no right on red" sign before assuming it is legal at an intersection where it is.
If you are stopped for speeding, running a red light, 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 flee if faced with the same situation.
In New York or Boston (London or Beijing), take a taxi or public transport. Some warnings that read "Do not try this at home." As for the realization therein, 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 snowy climate, 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 starts to slide, you will be glad you did.
For us, just saying "I'm from Texas" is often enough for our customers to offer free driving lessons, ice conditions, or not.
Air Travel Tips
Since 9/11, track rules for air transport and go through security checks has become more difficult, but airlines have made a sincere effort to help.
Each airline and airport site has information on security requirements and how long it will take to reach your goal. Experienced travelers quickly learn to avoid the busiest times of the 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 websites will also give information on other services available at the terminals. For example, did you know that 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.
Airport Portland, Oregon, has a large shopping center. You can get all your Christmas shopping done between flights and have the items you bought Sent home. Oh, and did we mention that Oregon has no sales tax?
San Francisco Airport is twenty different museum galleries rotating art, culture and science exhibitions on a regular basis. At SFO, you can not help but be entertained and educated while you are traveling.
Here are some other tips to make air travel easier:
When making reservations, ask for a seat near the front of the plane. Airlines seats allocated back to the face and families traveling with children tend to plan beyond business travelers, so the screaming children three years are usually in the back of the plane.
Always ask the line output. Children are not allowed, and more legroom is obtained.
Use earplugs or invest in good anti-noise headphones if he goes to sleep. People talk louder on airplanes.
Aircraft have only 3% moisture, so quickly dehydrate. Bring a bottle of water on board. (This will also keep your feet swelling.) To reduce the cost and weight of luggage down, bring an empty, ask the flight attendant to fill it for you bottle. 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 "verification" door of their suitcases. Especially with small commuter flights, this means you get your bags immediately when you get off the plane, without stopping at baggage claim.
Pay attention to the security word occasionally. How to wash your car to make it rain, it's just good karma. We asked, and yes, most flight attendants feel too stupid to give the speech that will listen, but the fact that no one is listening is simply your job more difficult.
To avoid stiff neck from sleeping on a plane, ask the flight attendant a rolled blanket and wrapped around his neck before bedtime. His head does not roll from side to side, you do not snore and will not be nearly as ridiculous as these people drooling over the shoulder of his neighbor. 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, you are better prepared to perform at work, and you will have more success.
Cabins and conference rooms are the same everywhere. The work does not change, but take the time to make friends with those around you, at work and in the hotel, will make all the difference in the world as you do.
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